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Jason Fisher with Content Architecture + Interiors has designed many homes for Terrawise, including the unique live/work development in Springfield. Jason talks about this project:
**Jacksonville’s historic districts feature a mix of single family and multifamily structures, but row homes are largely absent. This is one of the many styles of ‘missing middle’ housing that has been almost zoned out of existence in cities. Montreal is famous for its walk-up terrace houses, but you really have to struggle to find these kinds of homes in Jacksonville’s urban core. What are the advantages of this kind of housing style? **
You do find these types of homes in cities such as Montreal, Boston, and San Francisco where the land costs required more density than what we find here in Jacksonville. On the design and development side, you’re able to benefit from the ability to have better buying power by purchasing the product for and also building the multiple homes at once instead of just one and utilizing an economy of scale. These particular live/work units have a mix of commercial on the bottom floor with residential incorporated above and allows for multiple ways to enjoy the home with rear yards, multiple floors, porches and roof decks. Construction is more efficient because the home has less exterior walls and minimal external areas for sunlight and temperatures to affect the interior of the home. The cost savings in the construction and energy consumption will allow for prices and maintenance lower than a detached home of similar size and quality.
One of the roles of historic districts is to preserve a neighborhood’s character and what had made the neighborhood special, both in form and function. But even as a neighborhood’s historical context can be preserved- urban areas evolve and change over time. What role does contemporary architecture play in celebrating a historic neighborhood’s character?
For us, it is all about the context of the neighborhood and the introduction of something of today into that fabric. New modern designs that meet the guidelines for construction in a historic neighborhood celebrates the existing structures and makes the historic homes that much more special because it is not simply copying those homes. What if the only way to live in a home that looked like it was built in the early 1900’s was to actually purchase a home that was built in that time period? Our concern with copying history and building a faux period home is that with today’s sustainability techniques and elements (high efficiency windows, foam insulation, etc.) coupled with how people live in our homes today (flow, open plan concepts, smart wiring, storage) more than likely negatively effects the value of an existing historic home. We believe there will always be people that love true classic historical homes and if purchasing a move-in ready house or purchasing one and restoring is the only way to get one, we believe it makes them more valuable, and there will be fewer examples of them falling into disrepair.
**All of the new construction in the Springfield Historic District are (more or less) reproductions of a particular housing style that has been prevalent since Springfield became Jacksonville’s ‘first neighborhood’. This proposed development is one of the first contemporary architectural insertions into the neighborhood. You’ve had some experience here by getting a modern interpretation of Henry Klutho’s former Springfield approved by the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission in the not-too-distant past. What did you learn from that experience? **
Communicating to the neighborhood that modern design works in historic neighborhoods and navigating the HPC (Historic Preservation Commission) were the two biggest challenges for us. The staff at HPC just hadn’t had too many projects come up that tried to push the envelope in a bit more modern direction and were very helpful in sharing thoughts and ideas on how it could be done. There was great discussion with staff on each project. We learned that input is important and not this will be the fifth modern design to go the HPC, and to this point, all have been approved. The majority of the neighborhood, however, had only seen copies of historical homes being built and have always thought that was the only type of structure that could be constructed. On the first couple of projects we spent quite a bit of time discussing our designs with the community both face to face and on social media, explaining that the important facets to a home designed for the neighborhood were the ones required to meet in the COA (Certificate of Appropriateness) process – the scale, setbacks, openings, materials, etc. and not the aesthetics or style of the home. We don’t have to spend much time doing that anymore, now when we introduce a new design, much of the neighborhood understand there was a lot of thought and time put into the design and provides reasoning behind why the project fits into the fabric, even if it looks different from the existing homes, when another in the community says the project doesn’t belong.
For more information on why we believe modern design is so important to our historic districts, you can visit our website: [url=null]https://www.contentmodern.com/blog/modern-achitecture-in-our-historic-districts[/url]
I think one of the most overlooked aspects of a historic district is the preservation of the form and function of a neighborhood- in particular preserving the characteristics that make the neighborhood walkable. Lost in the debate about architectural appropriateness is the preservation of the gridded street system, setback lines, etc.. A neighborhood’s density is critical to preserving that walkable fabric. One of the interesting things about the proposed development in question is that it adds density that remains in scale with its surroundings. The arrangement of the buildings are also congruent with today’s living preferences (ADU units to provide rental income, the proliferation of working remotely, preferring to live in smaller spaces, etc). Talk about the approach to this proposed live/work housing development.
The developer, TerraWise Homes, brought the idea for the lot to us. We had previously designed a similar project for our Urban Facelift Project about a decade ago and showed them the conceptual ideas we had for that project and they were immediately attracted to it. The idea for this project was to create a unit that functioned three-fold for a potential buyer. These units are not going to be low cost because of the size and amenities of each one, but those amenities are what make the homes valuable, so it allows us to throw quite a bit of design and ideas into each unit. The owner will have a commercial space on the first floor, perfect for designers, photographers, etc. and have their living spaces above. To the rear of the property, there will be a garage with another living unit above. Therefore a potentially higher purchase price for the residential unit is offset by the ability to house an office below and the income for the rentable unit, not to mention the solar panels and the amazing view of downtown up on the roof decks on the third floor.