Highwood Square Artists Housing

Community room with duplex apartments above.

Project details

• Project Name: Highwood Square Artists Housing
• Client: Mutual Housing Association of South Central CT., Inc.
• Project Type: Affordable Housing
• Principal Designers: Graftworks Architecture + Design in collaboration with Ben Ledbetter Architect | Lawrence Blough, Principal (Graftworks) and Ben | Ledbetter, Principal (Ledbetter architect)
• Design Team: John Henle (Graftworks), Ben Howes (Graftworks)
• Contractor: La Rosa Building Group
• Date of commencement of project: Summer 2007
• Date of completion of project: Summer 2008
• Location of site: Hamden, CT, USA
• Site Area: 76,000 s.f.
• Built-up Area: 46, 250 s.f.
• Cost of Construction/Execution: $180 s.f.

View from park.

Words from the Architects

This 48,000 s.f. project is being developed as apartments for artists by Mutual Housing Association, a nonprofit organization working to provide quality affordable homes for working families in New Haven.

Aerial from Dixwell Avenue.

The scope includes adaptive reuse of an existing 1920's brick warehouse and office building into artist studios and commercial space. 27 units of housing are being designed as new construction facing a "rails to trails" park and as apartments on the roof of the warehouse with direct access to studios below.

Skin/program study.

Our strategy is to develop varying unit types that have the flexibility to be used as live/work studio space - every apartment also has access to private outdoor terrace. Being that this project revolves around the daily lives of artists, color plays an important role in establishing identity for each apartment and for the community as a whole.

Skin/program study.

All the building materials are standard off the shelf products (metal shingles, polycarbonate glazing, fiber cement board, corrugated metal) consistent with the industrial past of the neighborhood but used in novel ways.

Unit Morphology.

Credits

• Text and Images, Courtesy of the architecture firm Graftworks; Copyright 2007 Graftworks LLC / Ben Ledbetter Architect LLC.