Balance serves as the figurative vehicle through which we addressed, resolved and reconciled the seemingly disparate desires and expectations for this project. Through its physical form, the solution balances the scale of the single-story El Presidio neighborhood with the adjacent mid-rise residential and government buildings. In terms of providing sufficient parking; the solution balances the City of Tucson’s desire for public parking with the need for private parking for Presidio Terrace residents. Perhaps most importantly, the solution balances the insertion of a contemporary residential building within the oldest and most historically-significant neighborhood in Tucson.
The first design strategy is to embrace the meaning and aspirations behind the chosen name “Presidio Terrace.” With regards to the term Presidio, we adopted the original Presidio San Augustin del Tucson as a point of departure for architectural design. With regards to the term Terrace, our project pulls away from the street edge as it ascends to upper levels and allows light infiltration to the inner courtyard, the Tucson Water building courtyard and to Paseo Redondo.
The second design strategy involves creating meaningful indoor-outdoor spaces. The corner neighborhood market café addresses the need for local gathering and purchase of goods. A semi-private courtyard is established between the two main buildings and is semi-enclosed with a living roof held up with vertical and horizontal cables. Each unit then has a private balcony or courtyard to fully appreciate the wonderful climate of the Southwest.
The third design strategy is to avoid all interior-loaded corridors typical of multilevel housing and to provide exterior circulation to every residential unit. This creates the opportunity to flood every residential unit with at least two sources of sunlight and eliminates the internal corridor typically found in dreary multistory condominiums.
location
Tucson, Arizona
client
Presidio Terrace Development, LLC
contractor
n/a
area
75,000 sf
