949 MORAGA ST
Timber Co-housing design
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2016
Instructor: Renee Chow
The city of Lafayette is about to develop a housing project of 18 units. The site located on the edge of the downtown commercial area, 949 Moraga road. The site now is a vacant land with a small hill and a bunch of trees.
There could be so many aspects for co-housing projects, as architects, we use architecture as the spatial agency to clarify relationships.In this project, I focused mainly on defining two sets of relationships
1.The relationship between architecture and landscape
2.The relationship between public and private
1/Since the site locates on a small hill, I decided to follow and strengthen this flow of landscape to create a dynamic dialogue between different height.
1.1 The massing of the design is pushed to the southern side of the site so that the northern part can potentially become a community park, which can be extended and connected to the commercial and greenery area to the north of the site.
1.2 By taking advantage of the topo, all the residential units are lifted up ground, displaced and staggered in a way to flow along the landscape, as a result, it created in-between public space where different activities can take place, also the height of the lifted units can provide great view towards the city.
2/ the relationship of private and public is big challenge is housing projects
2.1 Starting from the ground floor, Not to mention the park on the northern side, most of the public indoor space(community kitchen, laundry room, rental space) located on this level, scattered among the terraced landscape (can be shared not only be residence but contribute also to the people lives nearby).
2.2 Moving upwards, because of the staggering of units, the corridors is zigzag correspondingly, it creates a bunch of pockets(alcove) space on corridor level for public gathering and also unexpected encounter.
2.3 Now, into the units. Since the corridors locate to the north side of the building, facing the community garden, and that all the units are north-south facing, as people get into the units, they will get more and more privacy. There will be a giant outdoor terrace on the southern side of each unit. A giant louver roof hanging above the outdoor terrace filtering the sunlight, In the same time creating an introverted feeling and a sense of the community looking from outside.
