Unbuilt Projects 3: What may have been

 The Inn at Broken Top, Bend, Oregon

 Galley Bay, Antigua, West Indies

Lewis County Convention Center, Washington

The Landing , Revisited

Revisiting a project I designed 30 years ago is always interesting.  I believe buildings should be designed to evolve over time.  You see this in homes where successive owners modify or add to a house to reflect their personal needs and lifestyle.  Commercial buildings evolve as tenants or retail patterns change.

The Landing riverfront condominiums in Portland, Oregon, have not changed except in one way.   The mature landscape with full grown trees has softened the buildings and created a park like setting that was hard to imagine when they first opened.  The project combined expensive riverfront units with much lower priced units located behind.  The riverfront units were unusual for the time since they were a 50' wide concrete shell where each unit was designed and custom built for each buyer.

The buildings haven't really changed, the solid horizontal and vertical forms with stepped terraces, reflect 1980's style, yet still look contemporary and substantive today.  The full grown trees now have created a quiet park like setting that comfortably connects the two building types in a way that didn't happen 30 years ago.

Jakarta House 3

These are images from the raw Archicad 3D model to assist the owner's selection of colors and materials.  The house started construction on July 20th at 9 AM as determined by their Fengshui Master's calculations.  The model will be altered as material selections are made to evaluate their impact.

Plans and renderings of Jakarta House can be seen here and here.

Co-housing Court

 Ground Floor Plan Common Hall

 Second Floor Plan Common Hall

Site Plan

Creating a small group of residences where neighbors can be supportive of each other is attractive to some people, especially if they are looking at downsizing from their large family homes where they raised their kids. This co-housing concept allows each person or couple to live in the privacy of a stand alone home, in this case the Minimum House Plan 2 seen here. Three residences share a common facility that provides some of the advantages they had in larger homes as well as adding new spaces for activities that might have not been possible before.

The Common Hall has a large central room that opens onto a large covered terrace suitable for hosting large family dinners or celebrations. There is a kitchen and outdoor grill for communal meals among neighbors when wanted.  There is a large laundry room to compensate for the compact laundries in the units.  There is a guest bedroom for out of town visitors or family.  Upstairs there is a media room where TV or movies can be watched as a group.  The room, with it's wrap around couches, can also serve as extra overnight guest sleeping areas, especially for teens or college students.

There are two shared areas for work, art or hobbies.  Upstairs a shared studio-office room can be used by those that work from home.  This provides the advantage of being able to get out of the house and also have meetings with clients that are not in your personal residence. The room has abundant light from high windows making it also attractive as an art studio.  Downstairs there is a large high ceiling room that can be used for more active pursuits such as a shared wood working shop, or sculpture studio, or as an indoor space for working on cars or other things.

To build this complex each household would be investing in 1,072 sf of construction, including their residence and share of common facilities.  This is a way of downsizing with out giving up the large entertaining spaces or guest hosting capabilities, plus having the advantage of being able to live within a supportive group of friends or family making it easier to lead active lifestyles and the possibility to "age in place".

There is a design concept for another co-housing scheme here.