Hancock Mixed Use Housing

This mixed-use project provides public parking, affordable and market-rate housing and retail space in a configuration that strengthens street and neighborhood identity. Koning Eizenberg teamed with a developer and the city to work through an option based, consensus building process to first develop a program (including required public parking) and then a design. The design emerged, in large part, from the challenges of the site and the program. It began with the simple goal of making “strong units” and continuous active street life extending from a busy commercial boulevard around the corner onto a quiet, residential avenue. A non-conventional approach to parking organized the design. Its configuration (see section) made sense of the sloping site and the car-heavy program to both reinforce street life and create a contributive rooftop open space that anchors the residential community. This arrangement eschewed the traditional parking solution, placing affordable live-work housing and people at grade on the avenue, and initiated a landscape sequence at the roof that organizes a prosaic use into more of a hillside square, thus visually integrating the existing apartments with the new housing. Architectural expression is rooted in passive, sustainable strategies utilizing thin cross-ventilated unit plans. Flats facing the boulevard (south) are engineered with exterior sliding wood screens that provide passive shading as well as an opportunity for enhanced privacy. The large, private townhouse courtyards modulate the scale as the building moves north to merge with the hillside neighborhood behind. The 133,476sf project includes 31 condo units, seven affordable rentals, 11,402sf of street-level retail and 217 parking spaces, including 156 public spaces. Schematic design began in 2004 and construction was completed in 2009. Cost data has been withheld per request from the client. Although not seeking any environmental rating, this project demonstrates use of sustainable principles, high quality design and inventive site planning that builds community by strengthening connections and creating an approachable interface. The community process evidences the firm’s ability to mediate multiple interests and create high quality places.