PROJECT: Uptown Apartments + Shops
FIRM: modus studio
CONTRACTOR: Golden Construction
LOCATION: Fayetteville
Uptown Apartments + Shops creates a decisively new living model by utilizing the most basic and abundant suburban multifamily building block—the garden style walk-up apartment—to craft a series of concise urban spaces that create a “pop-up” neighborhood within the 15-acre site. In contrast to the cheaply constructed typological norms, Uptown Apartments + Shops elevates the architecture of the garden apartment model to create an anchor at the scale of the district and the city, providing legitimacy to the term “uptown”.
Traditional garden apartment complexes are characterized by multi-faced buildings surrounded by 90-degree parking lots. This mixed-use project leverages the Razorback Greenway at the south end of the site to create a street promenade that rewards pedestrian and bicycle use. A composed street space organizes the development, pinwheeling at the 5-story mixed-use podium building.
The garden apartment building modules, distilled as three primary 3-story ‘pods’, are cleverly composed and vibrantly sculpted in white stucco, dark gray cement fiberboard and masonry with natural cedar dolly varden siding. Each 12-unit pod is organized around a breezeway that completely cuts through the building. These ‘cuts’ align from building to building and provide the site’s cross grain, allowing close proximity to parking. The podium shares architectural language and material, while providing enough contrast to distinguish it as the center of activity. South and west elevations consist of carved balconies that provide unimpeded views to downtown Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas and the Boston Mountains.
The promenade and plaza are bolstered by smaller-scale amenities such as community gardens, terraces, the pool and a roof deck. A handful of units have lofts that offer additional flexible spaces that afford views and access to private rooftop patios. These lofts become signature formal elements, establishing rhythm and accentuating proportions along the site.
The striking composition of material, form and color makes this project a defining place among bland suburban commercial construction within uptown Fayetteville. A bold new model emerges, proving that our car-driven society can evolve into a hedonistic balance within our Southern culture. The right amenities of the city are often found in the wrong format, but Uptown Apartments + Shops seeks to redefine our spatial understanding of community connectivity and elevate the status quo of apartment living.
OWNER/CLIENT
Specialized Real Estate Group
PROJECT TEAM
Chris Baribeau, AIA
Cory Amos, AIA
Michael Pope, AIA
Matt Poe, AIA
Hannah Breshears
Cory Meyer
David McElyea
CONSULTANTS
Ecological Design Group
Jorgensen & Associates
RLG Consulting Engineers
HP Engineering
Entegrity
DK Design
709 Design
Craig Colorusso
PHOTOGRAPHER
Timothy Hursley
See more profiles from the 2018 AIA Arkansas Design Awards.
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