LUMBERYARD AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Graphic Credit: Cushing Terrell
Client: Town of Aspen
Location: Aspen, Colorado
Project Status: Approvals Process

Lumberyard Affordable Housing is an ambitious 277-unit high-density project with a goal to increase the inventory of affordable housing available to Aspen residents. Driving all aspects of project design are the guiding principles: community connection, pedestrian friendly, environmentally sustainable, living well, and authentically Aspen, which mirror the City of Aspen’s ongoing directive to create thoughtful, well-designed affordable housing neighborhoods. Connect One Design serves as the landscape architect and was heavily involved in public outreach and site layout.

The final design responds to the natural characteristics and physical constraints of the project site with buildings strategically sited to maximize usable open space, resulting in several green spaces and plazas referred to as “communal landscapes”, and intentionally oriented for protection from highway and airport noise and maximum solar exposure. The site also prioritizes pedestrian and bicycle travel with special attention given to creating and improving local trail connections. Additionally, a high-functioning multi-modal transit hub will be equipped with a bike-share station, personal bike parking, a bike wash, and a bike maintenance station. Parking and carports, the transit hub, stormwater retention areas and landscape berming are strategically located to also provide some relief from the adjacent airport and highway noise.

The landscaping provides an ample quantity and variety of ornamental and drought tolerant plant species suitable for the Aspen area climate, hot, dry urban environments, and a low-water use regimen to reduce the cost of long-term maintenance. The landscape will transition to a more native palette as it nears Deer Hill and the adjacent conservation easement with the aim to preserve, replicate, and extend the natural wild sagebrush landscape into the planting plan, while simultaneously reducing fire danger. Garden beds are placed along each first-floor private patio to screen them from the public and green roofs on both the community room and the covered parking structures, as well as integrated rain gardens, can be enjoyed from the plazas. Hardscapes will include permeable pavers and materials salvaged from the site.