Residential Home Community, Minnesota

INTRODUCTION

A private developer engaged the Nadi Group to create a full design brief package for a planned housing community in southern Minnesota. The proposed community will consist of over 400 housing units, which consist of single family leased or sold lots and multi-family housing units. The development is on a 143-acre tract.

PROJECT SUMMARY

This community is envisioned to be a unique, vibrant, and environmentally driven neighborhood, promoting LEED certified living. Addressing the city’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the design goals of this community aspire to be:

·      A place to enjoy and protect the greenway reserve.

·      An exemplary community in sustainable and efficient buildings.

·      A walkable and bikeable neighborhood.

·      A connected community with plenty of open space.

·      A place with year-round amenities for all ages.

·      A diverse and inclusive community with 10% of housing dedicated to marginalized minorities.

We stipulated that this community would be highly-amenitized and affordable. 26% of the site will be common open space (greenways, pathways, parks, plazas, waterbodies and so on).

OUR ROLE

Our first step entailed background research and site analysis of the location. The findings of these studies informed us to adopt a design approach that is sensitive to the site’s unique topography, existing treelines, groundwater table, surface drainage and the adjacent neighbourhoods.

This approach guided us in the preparation of a sketch plan depicting street and lot layouts, and the locations of different housing typologies, detention ponds and amenities. One critical aspect to the design was the carefully planned allotment of the homes in terms of optimization of the yield, reinforcement of public street frontage, walkability, sensitive wetlands and open spaces, alignment to neighbours and overall harmony with the site’s characteristics.

As part of the branding and marketing package, we also performed the following tasks:

·      produced the architectural guidelines, display boards and logo design,

·      contributed questions to the community questionnaire, and

·      coordinated the images and videos for the website design.

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