The concept for the Novato Senior Housing site is a woven
terrain. This translates into Weaving
of three design parameters – programmatic, landscape and sustainability.
Programmatic Weaving provides for a variety of activities to
be intertwined with the housing units including sports, tennis, swimming,
basketball, and open fields for a variety of community activities. The
landscape is comprised of an interwoven fabric of passive and active gardens. Passive gardens provide sustainable revenue generating areas for vineyards and
vegetable gardens which produce a revenue generating income for residents. Passive
gardens provide areas for the natural California landscape of the site,
California wild flowers and butterfly gardens.
The housing units are woven
within the active and passive gardens to provide the residents and surrounding
community with a variety of recreational activities and visual experiences.
Site Views
A self optimizing script based on site volume and vicinity
site views was implemented as a site design strategy to maximize dwelling views
throughout the Novato area. The nodes
created by the script contain views including mountain, bay and internal site
landscapes. Houses were located on these
nodes.
Sustainability of Housing and Landscape
To maintain a comfortable temperature within each dwelling
units, natural resources will be used. With the use of clerestories, each unit
will maximize natural cross ventilation. South facing windows will maximize
winter heat gain and a roof overhang will reduce solar heat gain in the
summer. Partially earth bermed units
will moderate extreme temperatures and protect the units from prevailing west
winds.