A tight site within a transitioning neighborhood where popular areas like The Gulch, 12 South, Edgehill, and Melrose all intersect, this project presented several unique design challenges. The existing single-family residential zoning resulted in a small buildable area in which the client wanted to maximize with eight, 3-bedrooms single-family attached townhomes. Due to the proportions of the lot, the “front doors” of the pair of buildings necessarily faced each other across a common shared driveway.
The concept revolved around creating a streetscape that could also serve as a common plaza as opposed to strictly utilitarian drive access. Additionally, another challenge was creating a true front door to each unit in conjunction with the necessary garage doors. Finally, since the side of the units faced the main lot frontage on 12th Ave., the end units became dual-front door units with side porches as the second level that also served the purpose of creating pedestrian scale and a welcoming presence at the level of the public street.
