Zoso Lofts
As urban infill gets bigger and more efficient, it is an increasing challenge to create contemporary, dynamic, pedestrian friendly street walls without resorting to an arbitrary, artificial image of accidental accretion of buildings over time, or imitating traditional buildings – this project’s concept provides a way to achieve this.
The site is a 1.14 acre greyfield lot which is 400’ long and is located on a commercial street within the Arlington transit oriented – mixed use - district, 700’ from a metro rail station -2 stops from Washington DC. The front of the site is across the street from a 10 story building and the rear abuts a tree lined, 1920’s single family neighborhood. Previously there were lack luster 1 story industrial buildings on the site. The site is at the edge of the main commercial corridor.
The 400’ long, 5 story mixed use building is composed of 114 apartment units (100 DUs/acre) and 22,000sf of office(fronting rear garden), retail (fronting street)on the ground floor and 9 bays (5 bays of paired units) with brick screens syncopated – A-c-B-c-A-c’-B-c-A, Front: 3 story - A=circle, B=square and c=slot/”joint”, metal panel joints between all brick screens (rear 1 story openings) - to create a dynamic, human scaled street wall that changes as one walks along it but is precisely and hierarchically ordered. Brick is used as it has an important history in the region as well as its durable urban properties. The rear steps down to 4 stories towards the single family homes. A strong presence is important because there is a one-block interruption in the continuity of the ground floor retail between the project site and the rest of the retail street.
