Posts Tagged With: architecture

Mcallister Village: Walkable, Adorable, Affordable

The Mcallister Village concept is to create a neighborhood of small starter homes a short walk from coffee shops, restaurants and the future downtown Crozet. The site is designed to push the parking to the outside, create courtyard entries to all the houses, open up a shared central green with a shared pavilion, and be enhanced with perimeter walking trails. This idea was inspired by The Boiceville Cottages in Brooktondale, NY not far from Ithaca, NY

The houses will be compact one bedrooms with lofts attached to compact lofted two bedroom or three bedroom houses. The one bedroom houses fit somewhere in-between apartments and single family detached houses in the market; a segment largely ignored for decades due to outdated zoning codes. The houses utilize a versatile lofted design to provide more storage and living area for singles, couples and young families. The construction details are simple and elegant; reducing cost, increasing thermal efficiency and maximizing space.

The proposal asks to either fix the blatant mathematical errors in the R-2 zoning code or rezone the property to PRD (Planned Residential Development) from R-2 to allow for our creative redesign. The total amount of families would be the same as by-right, but the by-right attached accessory units (adus) would be expressed as more desirable attached one bedroom cottages that can be bought or rented separately:

This project is currently shelved unless a forward thinking developer wants to take on securing the property and going through the county rezoning process. Contact us for more information

Categories: Architecture, Communities, Design, New Urbanism, Preservation, Tiny Housing | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

999 Rio: Mixed Use Pocket Neighborhood

This interesting little mixed use project is located on a busy arterial road on one edge and a much quieter neighborhood street on another. The plan is to build a small office building along the arterial road with a residential pocket neighborhood along the neighborhood street. More information on the project can be found here.

Shimp Engineering came up with the site design for the developer, Gallifrey Enterprises. We were tapped to help the surrounding neighbors and local leaders get a better understanding of how the project would feel on the corner. We built a really quick set of renderings, designed an inexpensive but attractive office building, and were able to provide design feedback from the visualization. With the renderings in hand, the project received approval from the County in 2020.

The parking requirements for the site are quite large, causing it to take up a lot of the site. The affects of this amount of parking were toned down by tucking the parking behind the buildings and providing as many trees on the site as possible

The pocket neighborhood features a dozen houses around a shared greenspace which is hoping to attract life with its shared pavilion for outdoor gatherings and kids playground. The parking is in the remote parking areas so that the greenspace stays free of automobiles.

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Small Wonder: Neighborhood Concept Blooms in Bamboo Grove

Lisa Martin wrote a wonderful story in the Crozet Gazette about the little neighborhood we’re trying to build and how it came to be.

Categories: Announcements, Architecture, Communities, Design, Energy Efficiency, New Urbanism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Green Building December 10th Building Tour: First Passive House in Virginia: Ten years in

Tour the first Passive House in Virginia with the General Contractor and Owner as they explain the intentions going into the project and lessons learned. Lankford Passive House has three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, and about 2,250 square feet.

The green home has triple-pane Serious Windows 725 Series, double-stud wall framing, FSC-certified framing lumber and plywood, structural insulated sheathing with taped seams, a hybrid wall with nine inches of Agribalance open cell spray foam and cellulose insulation, a roof with Agribalance open cell spray foam and two inches of closed cell roof foam, a white roof, and an exterior with stucco and Western Red Cedar.

The home includes several other green elements, including a 1,100-gallon rainwater harvesting system, locally-sourced slate, regionally-sourced red oak floors with a water-based low-VOC finish, and building finishes from cherry and locust trees harvested on the site.

I GBCI and AIA CE credit pending approval

Fee: $5 for members and $15 for nonmembers.

Register Here

DATE AND TIME
Tue, December 10th, 2019: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
LOCATION
229 Lankford Ave, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Categories: Announcements, Architecture, Design, Education, Energy Efficiency, Preservation, Technology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Prairie Queen Missing Middle Neighborhood

Reintroducing the 4 and 6 unit apartment building and placing them in a new neighborhood is a great concept for building housing with the character of lovely turn of the century streetcar neighborhoods with the realities of the modern mega-financing world.

This is a great model to create vibrant, community fostering, walkable places instead of soulless apartment buildings. Thoughtful design goes a really long way.

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Putting a friendly face on Gentle Density

Attached housing is a really smart way to increase density and provide affordable, small housing in walkable neighborhoods, but it is illegal in most places. Duplexes don’t have to be ugly! This is a gallery of lovely examples where attached housing not only fit well into an existing neighborhood, but is also really attractive. Help normalize and re-legalize missing middle housing by adding your pictures to and sharing galleries like these!

Put a Friendly Face on Gentle Density

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ZERO Code

In case you missed it, we can now create new buildings that are so efficient that they can create most of the power they need onsite and it can be done at a very small or even no premium to standard buildings.

There are a few big challenges to widespread adoption:

1. We need to take Bold action.

2. Everyone involved needs to buy into the idea (Owners, builders, designers)

3. We need Simple, elegant, low cost tools to use to guide the infinite possibilities of a building design in the right direction. The Zero code is a straightforward set of code style rules that gets a new building on the path to zero-net-carbon without having to pay for a plaque.

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Required Reading: A Pattern Language

I can’t say enough about this book. When I first read A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander it completely changed my outlook about what the built environment should strive for. The introductory book The Timeless Way of Building highlights the fact that humans are emotional creatures and that architecture should recognize this and be built to enhance the lives of the people that inhabit the places created. “A Pattern Language” takes that fuzzy concept of happiness, comfort and wholeness and details how to achieve it in the built environment with a scope that no book before or since has replicated. This books should be required reading for every architect, urban planner, engineer, and social activist.

 

Categories: Architecture, Communities, Design, New Urbanism, Resilience | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

Green Crozet Houses: Orchard Dr

Attached Greenhouse

Just a few blocks from Crozet’s downtown district is a little one acre parcel of land that was once the home to part of a much larger apple orchard. A few of the old apple trees remain and a tenacious grove of bamboo has colonized the stream bank. Today this plot is completely surrounded by houses, has public water, sewer and electricity, and is an easy walk from coffee shops, post office, a new Library, restaurants, stores and loads of small town charm.

The concept for this one acre parcel just north of the intersection of Jarman’s Gap Rd and Orchard Dr (two lots) in Crozet is to build two houses that have attached accessory units that even though they are attached, feel like their own completely separate houses. This is done by clever house and window placement, utilizing the existing topography as an advantage. The houses are designed to be net-zero ready, using such

Entrance from Orchard Dr

little energy that a few solar panels on the roof or mounted remotely can power them while providing superior indoor air quality and comfort for the residents. The houses are placed on the site to capture their outdoor spaces, making them comfortable and loved. The grounds will be planted with native plants as well as non-invasive food producing orchard trees. The existing street will be lined with shade trees and rain gardens. The houses are also designed to fit in with the existing neighborhood’s one and two story ranches in scale, color and texture.

See the full designs here and contact me if you would like to buy one or design something like this for somewhere else!

 

Categories: Architecture, Design, Tiny Housing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Green Building April 10th Luncheon: Biophilic Building Design = Symbiotic Climate Response Solutions

Earth’s climate and our man-made environment is at a tipping point. Designers and builders must embrace a more urgent and far reaching purpose and responsibility, in ways that regenerate and nourish the health and beauty of our built environmental and planet. This presentation will cover state-of-the-art practices and conceptual future systems and methods needed to create organic buildings that embrace accountability with respect to climate change and quality of life. Inspiring current opportunities and evolving case studies will be explored.
Fred Øesch is the principal of Øesch Environmental Design of Charlottesville, VA. He has designed and built alternative “green” architecture, custom interiors, furniture, and produced fine art for over 35 years. His specialties include: solar, timber frame, straw bale, vegetated roofs, earth shelters, and passive environmental control systems. You can follow his work at fredoesch.com
Lunch will be provided.
Meeting space generously sponsored by City of Charlottesville
Categories: Announcements, Architecture, Design, Resilience | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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