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Mixed Use, Live/Work, Multi-family Residential
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Wolff Waters Place
(# 27) |
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| Completion |
12 / 2009 |
| Specific Use of Building |
Multi-Family Housing |
| Project Location |
La Quinta, California |
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Wolff Waters Place is a wonderful neighborhood. It is an apartment complex for low income families, but it is a public realm that is safe, and supports the social network that weaves together all 218 apartments and their occupants. Because funding comes with a 55-year covenant to remain affordable, sustainability and livability are essential. The buildings are energy efficient (LEED Silver and Gold certified) which is a common measure of sustainability. But we believe that a broader measure is whether the complex is a desirable and memorable place to live. To that end, our design focuses on safety, scale and beauty within the public realm. Cars drive on tree-lined streets not through endless parking areas, the buildings are arranged to shape the street or create “toddler-safe†courtyards, and most units are designed with front doors and/or kitchen windows facing streets or courtyards providing “eyes on the street.â€
To fit within the suburban context, the buildings within the complex needed to vary in mass and height; the perimeter buildings are lower with a long three-story “spine†building in the center of the project. Furthermore, because the project is on “view corridor†streets, and next to a high-end resort country club, the architecture had to be indistinguishable from market rate projects. In fact, due to the sensitivity of placing low-income housing near high-end resort housing, the City wanted the appearance to be especially handsome. The “Santa Barbara†style was selected because it is familiar, of an appropriate scale, and can be personalized with a range of “add-on†elements (e.g. balconies, awnings, shutters, roof extensions, etc.) without losing the basic proportions and elegance of the buildings themselves.
Our initial organizing principle – the curved spine road – took form much as we had hoped. Formally it is a delight; the road curves slightly so that the pedestrian’s view subtly changes along the street. It also serves the functional purpose of creating a linear thread that weaves the entire site together – the cluster neighborhoods open along the western side, and the three-story main "spine" building stretches along the east side. On the east side of the three-story building is a pedestrian path that along with the sidewalk adjacent to the curved road creates a loop for evening strolls, all without crossing a street. The three-story building is built over an underground garage. Both three-story and underground parking are very unusual for a low-density suburban community. However, the City was willing to pay the first-cost premium for the garage for three reasons: it frees up an acre of the ground plane for recreation – basketball court, three tot lots and a community pool; it allowed the surrounding buildings to be relatively small in footprint thus creating numerous courtyards; and it created a definable public realm that was varied, orderly and unified in theme and scale. The change in building massing – from one-story at the perimeter view corridor streets to three-story along the inner spine – keeps the overall experience interesting and adds to the sense that not everything is revealed at once. There is discovery as one walks through the community.
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