SOCIALIZE • GARDEN • SLEEP
Located in the Grand Center area of St. Louis, the On Olive Development is a unique, local community nested in a greater metropolitan city. With a network of footpaths and landscape gardens, new homes are proposed to create an innovative and vibrant neighborhood. Recreational amenities inter-weave between homes and gardens, creating a social and pedestrian-friendly experience that was long celebrated as part of the St. Louis tradition. Through playful site planning, homes on the south side of Olive Street are scattered but thoughtfully placed to all have a 360-degree view of green gardens and sunlight.
The idea is simple – it is about bringing the peacefulness of a suburban lifestyle to an urban setting that provides all of the conveniences, combining the best of both worlds. Our approach, on the north side of Olive Street, is to use gardens to separate physical spaces where we socialize and sleep. The proposal not only embraces this idea but also challenges to push boundaries further while designing on a repetitive city lot. With dimensional limitations on a long but narrow rectangular lot, our design is conceptualized around dividing the single volume of a traditional home into multiple massing pieces. While all the spaces are still threaded together through a central axis, the living room and kitchen are now physically separated from the bedrooms by multiple outdoor areas. A private healing garden and a paved hardscape were created, in addition to the front yard where social conversations and neighborly interactions are held. Each of these new creations is designed and meant to offer distinct visual, physical, and spiritual experiences that reference the suburban lifestyle that is adaptive and personal. Both the living and sleeping quarters also have an attached outdoor terrace that functions as an extension of the interior space with seamless transitions. At a building scale, each individual massing is sculptured to reflect the surrounding vernacular architecture while remaining contextual on the street front. Our design is striving to bring together the best of both urban convenience and suburban living harmoniously. While supporting On Olive’s initiative to create a social and vibrant community, more importantly, our design took on the challenge to fundamentally improve the quality and individuality of an American home, with respect to the region’s rich history. |
LOCATION / YEAR
St. Louis, Missouri / 2021 PROJECT TYPE / SIZE Single-Family Residential / 2,357 SF New Construction Competition Proposal CLIENT Olive West Properties, LLC |