One of the core challenges of this project was to achieve our client’s desired density of 70 units within an active neighborhood concerned with protecting its strong sense of community. To address these concerns we produced numerous massing models that explored ‘modulating density’ in such a fashion that, while achieving the prerequisite of 70 units, produced ‘topographical forms’ that provided flexibility in how we allocated the programmatic mix of unit types, decreased the scale of the building at a prominent intersection, and democratized both light and view.

Next, we wished to invert the current norm as it it pertains to multi-family housing, of restricting the town homes to being within the podium of the building. We achieved this by elevating the town homes to the upper-layer of the building in an attempt to replicate the formal and programmatic diversity, human-scale and the sense of community typically associated with single-family homes. Combined with the topographical massing, this ‘contextual stitching’ creates a whimsical, village-like atmosphere that encourages social interaction amongst the building’s inhabitants, provides a diversity of housing types (townhouse, loft, studio, condo) and creates a variegated roofscape.