Compact Mixed-Use Residential Development (Hopewell, NJ)
with Ross Woolley (RNAW Architects)
Design Development
Neighborhood Block Site Plan
A private client’s mixed-use residential development with new apartment building, duplex row, and renovated office in suburban Hopewell, New Jersey.
North Elevation Rendering (Broad Street)
The three-story, 44-unit apartment building synthesizes two competing local aesthetics: (A) the traditional residential vernacular of horizontal vinyl siding and Hardie panels, and (B) the renovated industrial brick style of the few larger buildings in the town. The building’s L-shaped plan carefully avoids an underground waterway that cuts diagonally across the site. The building’s façade is clad in solid brown-red brick on the ground floor, and a lighter red brick masonry veneer on the floors above.
Ground Floor Plan
At the living space of each ground floor apartment unit, a modest exterior space is enclosed by a low wall.
Second Floor Plan
At the stacked living spaces of the upper floors, the exterior wall jogs to protrude small vinyl-clad vertical towers that fragment the building’s horizontality.
Third Floor Plan
There is a lobby-lounge space on every floor, with a shared kitchenette and half-bath on each of the upper floors, and bike storage plus additional tenant storage closets on the ground floor.
North Elevation (Broad Street)
East Elevation, Southwest Entrance Elevation
This scalar dispersal attempts to respectfully acclimate the building into the context of a town composed almost exclusively of single-family residences. Each living space is lit by large operable windows with industrial steel Juliet balconies.
Typical Unit Floor Plans
The apartments consist of one-bed/one-bath, two-bed/two-bath, and three-bedroom/two-bathroom units, with a washer-dryer closet in every unit.
Roof Floor Plan
A tiled portion of the flat roof serves as an outdoor lounge deck. Targeting a construction budget of less than $125 per square foot, the building is erected using wood frame platform construction with concrete masonry elevator pit and stairwells.
After receiving approval from the township’s Historic Preservation Commission, this project was paused by the client due to the global events of 2020.
