Multifamily

Alan Apartments, Mesa, Ariz.
Case Study
Exterior Panels/Cladding

Modern Metal-Clad Apartments Are Bright Standout

Building authorities initially took a dim view of the project’s proposed sharp angles and mixed materials, which stood in high contrast to the surrounding beige stucco. The 17-unit, townhome-style Alan Apartments project in Mesa, Ariz., quickly leased out, once construction was completed in late 2018—but it took some doing to get its unique exterior past city planners.  “This project was made to stand out, and not look like all the boring beige houses around it—on purpose it doesn’t look like anything in the area,” says architect Tim Boyle, principal of Tim Boyle Design. “It was rejected by city staff five times because of how it looks, but we s

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Case Study
HVAC

Hawaii Tackles Affordable Housing with HVAC Solution at Kapiolani Residence

With affordable housing availability a problem in Hawaii, the state is incentivizing developers to tackle the issue. Hawaii’s cost of electricity for the residential sector is the highest in the nation—currently 2.5 times the national average—so it can be heavy burden on households that are already struggling.When developer Timothy Yi, President of Samkoo Pacific & Samkoo Hawaii, set out to build the 45-story Kapiolani Residence in Honolulu, Hawaii, he wanted to provide an affordable housing option with enhanced functionality and modern design. And part of its affordability had to be keeping utility costs low for residents as well.

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Advances
Stone/Masonry

Street Savvy

Winner of a Bronze award in BIA’s residential category, the Unhistoric Townhouse in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan is a five-story townhouse, built for a family of four. System Architects embraced the street as a central theme of the project, to create a façade that engaged with the rhythms of the neighborhood.

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Case Study
Thermal & Moisture Control

Side-by-Side Comparison in Efficiency

Minnesota is hitting new heights when it comes to green energy standards. The state’s first-ever Passive House multifamily development, Hook & Ladder Apartments, opened October 2019 in northeast Minneapolis. It is set to prove just how much of a difference Passive House construction can make in operations cost and occupant comfort compared to buildings designed to conventional energy codes.To create a real-time project demo, lhb Architects designed the complex as a side-by-side experiment with two adjacent, nearly identical apartment buildings. One set of the look alike apartment buildings is built to state energy code specifications, the other to the Passive House Institute U.S. (

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Case Study
Exterior Panels/Cladding

Winter-Proof Walls

Winters in Traverse City can be brutal, so when planning its proposed four-story, 47,000-sq.-ft. Trailside45 apartment building in the northern Michigan town, owner, developer, contractor and operator, Westwind Construction, knew it needed a durable, energy-efficient exterior wall system that would also be attractive and easy to maintain. At first, the company tried life-sized samples of a stenciled brick design for the exterior wall. That didn’t achieve the look the design team wanted, so it explored other options.“We envisioned a modern, contemporary design and wanted a versatile exterior appearance, using as many textures as possible to provide exterior character,” said

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Case Study
Flooring

Senior Living Community Helps Residents Feel Closer to Home

The Mooring on Foreside trades the bland, institutional décor of traditional senior living facilities for a calming New England cape aesthetic. The Mooring on Foreside prides itself in providing responsive, specialized care for individuals living with progressive memory loss. In order to offer residents suffering from these conditions effective care in a familiar environment, The Mooring’s owner enlisted Gawron Turgeon Architects of Scarborough, Maine to design the ideal facility.“The overall challenge for The Mooring project was to create a functional, residential scale, small house community with a New England cottage style aesthetic. We also had to offer the safety and durabil

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UC Davis West Village Neighborhood
Case Study
Solar & Renewable Power

Live/Work Lifestyle

UC Davis West Village, the nation’s largest planned zero net energy community, continues to work toward its goal of producing 100 percent of the energy it uses.A 2015 report released by UC Davis and the West Village Community Partnership LLC said the community is 82 percent of its way toward reaching zero net energy, or ZNE. The analysis covers the time period between September 2013 and August 2014. “The neighborhood is close to where we want it to be, but we still are not at the finish line,” said Sid England, assistant vice chancellor of the UC Davis Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability. “I think we’re on track to get to 100 percent in t

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Edison Eastlake Apartments, Phoenix, Az.
Case Study
Multifamily

Beating the Heat

On top of that, the neighborhood has lower vehicle ownership than other areas of Phoenix, so residents rely on walking, biking or taking public transportation and are out in the heat for extended durations.As part of the plan to incorporate 1,161 units of mixed-income housing (including a one-for-one replacement of existing public housing units) Mithun developed new housing prototypes that maximize shade and ventilation and incorporate cool building materials to mitigate extreme heat. Now in the first phase of implementation (an affordable apartment building), the project’s housing design strategies include courtyard housing to maximize shade, single-loaded apartments with open breezew

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Advances
Exterior Panels/Cladding

Using Metal for Massing

Architects with Cleveland, Ohio-based Vocon were creating a streetscape, not just an apartment building, with their plans for The Quarter, a $60 million, mixed-use housing/retail development in their hometown’s Ohio City neighborhood. Varying shades of Omega-Lite ACM panels help define the shifting depths of the building’s façade. In all, more than 27,000 sq. ft. of the material in four finishes were installed using the manufacturer’s one-piece, tight-fit system.

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Advances
Doors/Entry Systems

Ornate Bifold

Two ornately clad Schweiss Doors bifold designer doors blend in with the historic 1926 look of a new apartment complex at Seattle’s historic auto row. The custom-made liftstrap doors measure 11 ft., 10 in. × 11 ft., 11 in. and 11 ft., 1 in. × 10 ft., 1 in.. Each door is equipped with photo eye sensors.

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