In Praise of Smaller Developments

by Trisha Riggs E-mail: priggs@uli.org

ULI’s Place Making Conference Explores Fundamentals of Designing and Building for Change

Conference panelists discussed the benefits of building smaller developments. The smaller the town center development, the more necessary it is to link with the surrounding neighborhoods, resulting in ample points of connection. Conversely, while larger developments have more capability to be self-sustaining, this can lead to isolation, participants noted. “Going small forces you to connect to what is around you, because you are not big enough to do things on your own,” said Richard E. Heapes, principal of Street-Works in White Plains, N.Y.

According to John E. Felton, principal and director of community design at Cline Design Associates in Raleigh, N.C., there are several steps that can be taken upfront to help smoothen the process of developing small, mixed-use projects, including conducting a full analysis of the entire site’s potential and the timing of the development of each use; developing a clear strategy for integrating each use; using a simple, efficient design; understanding that parking for each use is critical; and planning for the creation of an engaging place that draws people back for repeat visits.

Felton advised conference attendees to “go to where the people are” to find promising sites for smaller projects—including downtown infill locations, sites near transit, places close to universities or cultural centers, and old shopping centers. Many of these sites represent lucrative opportunities for adaptive reuse, he said.

Katherine Kelley, president of Green Street Properties in Atlanta, shared four key lessons learned in developing small-scale projects: 1) Be externally focused—build to the perimeter of the project so it connects to the external infrastructure. “This is beneficial to the surrounding community as well—each can enjoy the benefits of the other.” 2) Anchor the project with great restaurants. “They (restaurants) are a primary channel for the public, and they draw people to the adjacent retail.” 3) To the extent possible, arrange the project’s components horizontally. “If you have to layer vertically, make each building easily walkable to the next.” 4) Realize that something has to give to make the numbers work. “If you don’t have high density (which is sometimes a challenge to achieve in smaller projects) you have to look elsewhere for a sufficient revenue stream.”

The place making trend, said Terry Shook, president of Shook Kelley in Charlotte, N.C., has resulted in a “new breed” of community developers who are catering to rising consumer demand for convenient living environments that save time by offering a variety of development uses close together. Town center development provides an opportunity to reclaim areas with no sense of community—particularly in suburban settings—by “turning the ordinary into the special, until we reach a point at which the special becomes the ordinary,” he said.

AIA Top 10 Green Winner

The Z6 House

Location: Santa Monica, Ca
Building type: Single-family residential
New construction
2,480 sq. feet (230 sq. meters)
Project scope: a single building
Urban setting
Completed August 2006
Rating: LEED for Homes v1 --Level: Platinum


The Z6 House is a single family residence that was added to a multi-family zoned lot with an existing duplex. The residence has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths., although the bedrooms open up to the rest of the house for added space when needed.

The house is constructed of factory built modules that were delivered to the site and erected on the site-built foundation over a period of 13 hours; the structural slab on grade serves as the finish floor for the first level. A roof deck takes advantage of views and a green roof with vegetation native to southern California.

This project was chosen as an AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Green Project for 2007. It was submitted by LivingHomes, in Santa Monica, California with Ray Kappe Architects, in Pacific Palisades, California. Additional project team members are listed on the "Process" screen.

Environmental Aspects
A commitment to minimizing the ecological footprint informed all aspects of the homes' design. The project team used the phrase "Six Zeroes" to describe the goals of the project: zero waste, zero energy, zero water, zero carbon, zero emissions, and zero ignorance.

The design maximizes the opportunities of the mild, marine climate with a passive cooling strategy using cross-ventilation and a thermal chimney. A 2.4-kilowatt photovoltaic array and a solar hot water collector take advantage of the sunny location, as does the daylighting strategy for the interior.

To create flexible interior spaces, all bedrooms have moveable wall partitions that can be opened to common areas for more space. Large exterior doors and large expanses of glass connect inside to outside and allow living space to expand to the outdoors.

New Urban Home by David Baker + Partners

by Jetson Green

I wanted to talk about David Baker + Partners' (DBP) new design for a development called Blue Star Corner. The design is called the New Urban Home. The New Urban Home philosophy blends loft and condominium attitudes, with a modern feel that tends to build up--not out. This philosophy was brought to the Blue Star Corner development to create a sustainable (LEED for Homes), modern, urban design for the historic Park Avenue District in the Bay Area. All the appliances will be Energy Star, all the plumbing will be water efficient, and the site is located near mass transit. Blue Star Corner is planned for completion in mid-2007.

Green Features:
The developer, Holliday Development, and DBP hope to achieve LEED for Homes certification on this project. Here's some of what they're going to do: will use recycled and non-toxic building materials, non-endangered woods, galvanized metal, bamboo flooring, and environmentally-fabricated CaesarStone quartz countertops; will try to source materials locally as much as possible (keeps money in local economy + eliminates the transportation/gas premium); open spaces will feature sustainable landscaping by Conger Moss Guillard Landscape; appliances will be energy-efficient with Duravit, Kohler, and Bosch brands; and much more.

Other Amenities:
Units will include also Ann Sacks bathtubs, Sub-zero + Jenn-Air refrigerators, Bisazza tiles, Benjamin Moore paint, in-unit iPod docking stations, and personal garages with fold-up work stations. This is all going in with the general setup with a master bedroom, living room, kitchen, and flex room. To add to that, homes will be unique--they won't all have identical features, colors, or design. It's important to cater to individuality.

Extra Links:New Urban Home at Blue Star Corner [Generalized Case Study]David Baker + Partners Provide Design for "Green" Amsterdam-Inspired Townhouses [MHN]

Sydney's Greenest Building

by Jorge

30 Bond
What’s more impressive than a building design that aims to reduce its greenhouse emissions to a 5 Star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating benchmark, which is the approximate equivalent to that of a Gold LEED greenhouse certification level? How about one which has proven to meet its target and improves on it. This is the case of the building known as 30 The Bond located at Hickson Road in Sydney.

When Lend Lease, its builder and current owner decided to create its new headquarters in Sydney it decided to hold numerous employee workshops to determine what they believed were the important priorities. Those priorities were reduction in pollutants, increase in environment quality, water management (as Australia has now been in what seems a permanent drought), waste management and a green area for them to enjoy. All of this resulted in an extremely well designed commercial building.

Built over the old contaminated gasworks site, which had to be restored, 30 The Bond was the first building in Australia to achieve the rating of 5 stars ABGR, with a certified emission that resulted in over a 20% reduction over the already stringent targets set by its initial 5 star design commitment, as well as receiving a 5 star Green Star - office as built rating from the Australian Green Building Council . It achieved this rating by using chilled beams (a first in Australia), wintergarden rooms and automatically controlled external shades to keep the heat out as well as providing external views to 60% of its occupants. It also contains low VOC carpets and paints, a roof garden with native plants and timber decking from sustainable sources. Water saving fittings as well as a sub-metering system to allow for any leak detection sealed the deal.

And while all of that is important, what we like here at Inhabitat is when we can achieve all this with style, and this building does it in droves. When entering the building you cannot help to notice the exposed four-storey sandstone wall that serves as one wall of the atrium. Aside from being a reminder of the site’s history, as it was originally cut by convicts early in Sydney’s history, it also serves as insulation as well as providing natural cooling to the atrium.
The 9 storey building was designed by PTW Architects (who we recentally raved about for their “Bubble Building”) in conjunction with WHO interior architecture and Bovis Lend Lease.

Volkshaus

Devised by a design group called Landship, (see also Be-haus, A-Kit, and Oji-Group) the Volkshaus concept was intended as a means to realize the simple practicality embodied by the Volkswagen Beetle in a DIY home building system. Bearing some characteristics of a plug-in architecture platform, it uses a system which combines 4x9.5" (105x240mm) wood beams and 4x4" posts connected with a concealed modular steel joint and modular floor, roof, and prefabricated insulated wall panels which nail into place on the post and beam frame. The system integrates both Japanese and western styles of design with modern materials and new eco-sensible systems for energy and climate control, such as a roof trombe wall style heat collector, a roof-peak passive ventilator system, and integrated photovoltaic panels. It has so far been used for about 2000 homes in Japan and is offered in a variety of kits from a community of companies specializing in making products for it. Unfortunately, the exchange rates and the fact that almost all building lumber in Japan is imported makes the cost of importing these kits to the US unattainable.

Net Zero Energy Building

by Jetson Green

I just thought I would blog about this real quick because it caught my attention in the latest edition of BusinessWeek. There was a full page ad saying, "Imagine that. You can do well in the world without hurting it." Pictured in the ad is a pretty neat looking building (above), which is interactive at www.utc.com/curious. Go give it a look...United Technologies' (NYSE: UTX) green building page has information on electrochromic glazing, 100% recycled structural steel, vertical axis wind power turbines, photovoltaic solar power arrays, zero VOC paints, green roofs with an integrated reclamation systems, conserving energy, fuel cell power plants, and combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) systems. Maybe someone should actually build the structure that's in this rendering.