2014 People’s Choice Awards – Unbuilt (Submittal)

AIA Southwestern Oregon

Submittal for Unbuilt Category
Featuring: Turtle Creek Homeownership Residences

In this competition which took place at the Lane County Home Improvement Show, local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

OUR HOME, OUR COMMUNITY

PROJECT:
Turtle Creek Homeownership Residences
Turtle Lane near Nantucket and Hatton Avenues, Eugene

OWNER:
Housing and Community Services Agency (HACSA) of Lane County

ARCHITECT:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc.:
Nir Pearlson, Rachel Auerbach, Roger Ota, Dan Abrahamson

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT:
LandCurrent Landscape Architects

CIVIL ENGINEER:
Poage Engineering

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Woodchuck Engineering

CHALLENGE

• Design a community of twenty low-impact, affordable, owner-occupied dwellings.
• Create a basic home prototype, with varying features that will foster homeowner pride.
• Conserve open land and resources wherever possible.

CONCEPTS

• Evolving from two prototypes, each home is unique with mirrored plan layouts, and contrasting roof forms.
• The street-facing entry leads into the great room where the kitchen, dining area, and living room overlap.
• Multiple openings and sheltered porches allow activities to spill outdoors, linking each home to its surrounding yard.
• An interior “organizing spine” includes the stairs, half-bath, storage closets, pantry, and utility chases.
• The bedrooms feature windows in two walls, high sloped ceilings, and open storage lofts.
• Two bays, clad in corrugated metal, add precious space on the interior and visual variety on the exterior.
• A dead-end lane was widened into a cul-de-sac, creating a vehicular / pedestrian neighborhood court.

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

Footprint: The project’s density is 13.5 units per acre – significantly higher than the surrounding neighborhood.
Daylighting: The great room is illuminated from four sides; the bedrooms from two to three sides.
Resource Conservation: The simple building form, topped with just two shed roof planes, facilitates efficient, minimum-waste construction.
Durability: Fiber-cement and corrugated metal siding, and standing-seam metal roofing, make for a low-maintenance and long-lasting building envelope.

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Turtle Creek