Timber Cube | coLAB studio

A residential development of three houses.

The plot is bounded on all sides and too small for a typical dense multi-family development as there is not enough space for parking, structure, and waste.
One idea is to turn the site into a desert oasis; a respite of nature in a rapidly urbanizing part of town. Or the land could be developed with just three multi-story private urban homes to fill the void. Or it could possibly be a quasi-public area for events.

The design aims to combine these three concepts: Three tall houses that leave enough room for parking, structure, and waste that gives a healthy amount of land over to Sonoran landscape. In addition, a semi-public square is provided.
The garden is raised up five feet above street level everywhere except the north property edge, where the garden slopes down to two feet. The houses are raised up eight feet above street level, supported on mass timber columns. The three-foot gap between the homes and garden wall allows the homes to look like they are floating amongst the plants and trees.

The homes are perfect 30-FT cubes and contain three levels. The space below them is used for storage, waste, and autos. The ground-level space between the homes is used for gatherings, play time, guest parking, projects, etc. The wall at the perimeter of the site creates a private enclave for those within and a garden for those outside.
The homes are clad in rusted horizontal corrugated metal, a modern material that marries local agricultural buildings with the look of “the old west” pioneer towns. The cladding contains large-scale artwork created by our studio; a series of drawings from life of indigenous plants. The graphics and the trees blend and blur into each other, allowing the dark clad homes to fade into background.