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Tag Archives: New Construction
Modern Shotgun House Could Be Future Prototype
Modern Shotgun House on Hull Street
A modern interpretation of a shotgun house is finishing up construction on Hull Street in Phoenix Hill. The project was designed and built by Shed Design+Build and will soon be home to one of the partners in the business. Graham Clark and John Bajandas recently completed the now fully occupied Franklin Flats in Butchertown with a similar modern interpretation of traditional massing. The modern shotgun house could eventually serve as a prototype for infilling vacant parcels in many of Louisville’s neighborhoods.
Graham Clark came to the realization that he wasn’t fully living in his 2,000 square foot condo in Crescent Hill. Realistically, he says he was only utilizing about 900 square feet on a regular basis. This led him to ask himself, “How do I live all over my house?” The result is a modern shotgun house where every bit of space has a use. The house sits on a 21′ by 111′ lot and has 1,438 square feet. Extra space in the basement and outdoor living spaces bring the total up to about 2,200 square feet. There’s still room on site for a carriage house and backyard as well.
The house is narrow at only 14′-5″ clear distance between exterior walls, but it has been designed to open up the interior spaces and create a flow to connect all parts of the house. Walking inside, high ceilings and tall windows help to push the walls out and make the house feel larger. Graham intentionally left the ground floor as a single open space with no interrupting walls to help heighten this effect. A half bathroom in the center of the house doesn’t quite reach the ceiling and provides a degree of visual separation between the living and dining areas of the house.
The half bath will be clad in the same hickory planks that cover the floor and a frosted glass clerestory will connect it to the ceiling. Built-in bookcases and storage units will help make the most of the small urban dwelling while keeping a clean, modern interior. In this way, even the bathroom becomes a piece of modern furniture placed inside the house rather than an afterthought tucked in a corner.
Privacy has also been unobtrusively designed into the house. Hotizontally oriented windows placed on the upper half of the side walls provide natural light while ensuring privacy on a narrow lot and recessed lighting keeps the space well lit without cluttering the ceiling. Since this is his own home, Graham was able to take risks he might not otherwise as a builder.
Perhaps the best spot in the entire house, though, is on the second floor. The dramatic butterfly roof set back from the front facade is revealed in the interior space and allows light to flood the two upstairs bedrooms. Salvaged 150 year old doors will be used to partition spaces. The master bedroom features a large terrace overlooking Downtown Louisville.
The modern shotgun house is situated high atop Phoenix Hill which rapidly fally away across Hull Street providing panoramic views of the entire city. Graham described the scene as an intensely urban one. City life unfolds in an action packed drama as city lights twinkle at night and various modes of transportation weave through the city just down the hill. Thunder Over Louisville this weekend is expected to put on an especially nice show from the terrace.
Graham Clark hopes to take his experiences with this house and apply them to a prototype modern shotgun house that can be built affordably as infill. He says the key aspects of the house are its open design, modern materials, traditional proportions, and urban scale. The house makes the most of its narrow lot while offering amenities common in modern design. The open floor plan and ample outdoor living spaces make this house extremely livable. Perhaps one day similar modern shotgun houses will fill missing teeth across urban Louisville.
- Franklin Flats To Be Fully Occupied By End Of Year (2008) (Broken Sidewalk)
- Franklin House Brings Modern Architecture To Butchertown (Broken Sidewalk)
PrintSoBro Pushing Eastward: Scholar House Plans Detailed
Downtown Scholar House (rendering by Girdler Group & Gil Stein Architects)
Today, the Family Scholar House announced plans for a new $10 million campus on the corner of First Street and Breckinridge Street in the SoBro neighborhood. Officially known as the Downtown Scholar House, the 54 unit facility will provide supportive housing and educational programs for single-parent students. The location at the site of the former Jim Cooke Buick and current BMW Motorcycle and Vespa showroom was chosen for its proximity to Spalding University, the Jefferson Community and Technical College, and the University of Louisville.
The Downtown Scholar House represents the second campus for the Family Scholar House, formerly known as Project Women. The first 56 apartment facility is located adjacent to the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus. Demand is high for apartments in the program. Currently, 350 families are on the waiting list, and the new campus should help ease the space crunch. The Family Scholar House aims to support the educational aspirations of single-parent families and to help foster college education to create valuable members of the community.
Two buildings currently on the project site will be renovated: a historic brick structure that once house the Filson Club will be transformed into a Scholar House community center and a former hotel owned by the city will serve as apartments. Two new structures on the corner will lend an urban edge to the site and take on the massing of townhomes. The design work was handled by the Girdler Group of St. Matthews and Gil Stein Architects. The Marian Development Group is serving as developer.
Like it’s predecessor the Louisville Scholar House, the campus is designed to foster a supportive community within and takes on a sort of cloistered form with balconies overlooking the parking lot and play area. It’s also welcome news that 54 new families will be calling SoBro home. The Family Scholar House sees their approach as a local method of stimulating the economy by supporting local families.
Sustainability also plays a key role in the design. One existing building is slated for a green, vegetated roof and the new structures will be built of modular panels built off-site to reduce waste and speed construction time. Energy efficiency will also play a key role in the new building and 2×6 stud walls will provide for extra insulation. The western portion of the nearly 2-acre Jim Cooke Buick property won’t be immediate built upon but could see a future addition.
Financing for the project in part comes from $7.73 million in tax credits and $200,000 from the state’s affordable housing fund. Ground is expected to be broken in a couple of months, so this site should quickly be transformed from a one-story showroom and corner parking lot into three-stories of townhouse apartments.
- Family Scholar House (Official Site)
Snapshot: Clinical & Translational Research Building
Clinical & Translational Research Building
Yesterday the construction fence surrounding the University of Louisville‘s Clinical & Translational Research Building came down. The new $143.1 million building on the corner of Hancock Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard won’t open until July, but much of the exterior site work is already complete. Workers were seen installing a glass canopy overhanging the building’s main entrance as the fence was hauled away. Today, crews were removing the construction-worn asphalt on surrounding streets in preparation for repaving. Signs noting “Sidewalk Closed” were still placed on site, so the plaza might not be open for a little longer. The Clinical & Translational Research Building’s architectural services were provided by Arrasmith, Judd, Rapp, Chovan, Inc. of West Main Street and SmithGroup of Detroit.
Construction Watch: Presentation Academy Brick Revealed
Presentation Academy Arts & Athletics Complex
Construction continues at the site of Presentation Academy’s new Arts & Athletics Complex on the corner of Fourth Street and Breckinridge Street in SoBro. Last time we checked in, concrete walls had just been tilted up. Since then, the building has officially topped out (okay, its not that tall, but it’s a ceremonial day in the life of any building) and a roof structure has been installed. Today, we spotted the first signs of a finished skin along the alley. The entire building will predominantly be covered in red brick, but the project renderings show a cast stone base and details including a dramatic entry arch. This one is going fast, so expect to see more of the facade revealed pretty soon.
- Snapshot: Presentation Building Tilted (Broken Sidewalk)
- Snapshot: Presentation Academy Foundation Construction (Broken Sidewalk)
- Presentation Academy Art-Athletics Complex (Broken Sidewalk)
Presentation Academy Arts & Athletics Complex
Snapshot: JCTC Allied Health Building Close To Topping Out
Allied Health building under construction on 2nd Street
Work continues at the new Allied Health building under construction on Second Street at the main campus of the Jefferson Community & Technical College. The fourth floor slab was supposed to be poured last week, but Ice Storm 2009 delays pushed the pour to next week. The next steps include pouring the next set of columns and a roof and, voila, we’ll have another topped-out building (but that means we’ll also lose a tower crane).
- JCTC Allied Health Building: Tower Crane Edition (Broken Sidewalk)
New Sidewalks: Fleur-de-Lis Construction Fence Removed
Construction fence removed from the Fleur-de-Lis
The construction fences have been removed from the Fleur-de-Lis condos on the corner of Preston and Main Streets, revealing a streetscape long barred from pedestrians. The last time we remember walking along this stretch of Main Street, the old Brinley-Hardey complex was still standing and boarded up. We had forgotten what the town looks like from this particular angle, and as it turns out: not bad.
This intersection is one of the most transformed in all of Louisville with Slugger Field and a new condo building across Preston. The Preston Pointe building across Main Street (by the same architect as the FDL, Potter & Associates), shows off its shiny steel angles pretty well, too, from the new sidewalk. The sidewalk design follows what has been done elsewhere in the area surrounding the ballpark: red and black bricks with street trees. This stretch, though, features granite curbs and of course, a new luxury mixed-use building.
New sidewalks at the Fleur-de-Lis
The work on the exterior of the building is all but done (some steps and a few metal panels aren’t finished). Beginning next year, work will resume finishing the interior spaces including two landscaped courtyards. Waterproofing should be done in the coming weeks and planting medium and some plants will be installed shortly after that. Other cold-sensitive plants will be installed in the spring.
Before any plants hit the building, though, we should be seeing actual human life on the property. The first condo will close next Wednesday and moving trucks will soon be parked along the street. 33 of the building’s 82 units have been sold so far and a model unit is open for tours on Sundays. One last note we don’t really know much about: is Preston Street soon to be two-directional between Main and Market? New street lights were installed a little while back facing both ways, so maybe the street’s in for a change.
- Snapshot: Fleur-de-Lis Update: November 2008 (Broken Sidewalk)
- Snapshot: Fleur-de-Lis Update: October 2008 (Broken Sidewalk)
Arena Mayhem: Shoring Wall Now Gigantic
Arena Shoring Wall
The shoring wall at the arena site along Main Street is now huge. You can judge by the people standing next to the wall holding up the street and the rest of downtown that the giant crater is nearly 4 or 5 stories deep. The arena site is always abuzz with activity these days. It’s a good thing the financing got through before the economic collapse, ’cause this giant hole in the ground offers hope in the midst of other sluggish projects.
Crews are working on removing the rest of the concrete foundation from the old LG & E sub-station. There’s a lot of it there, and it looks pretty solid, so they could be chipping away at it for a while longer. It also appears that any pile issues experienced at the site are resolved as work seems to be progressing on that front as well. The new “arena district” paving is also about done with its first block. You can walk on some of it now in front of the Riverfront Plaza. Back to the arena site, the area resembles a crater less and less and is fast starting to appear level from River Road to Main. The underground parking garage and plaza with be built where the shoring wall is located.
Arena Shoring Wall
- Arena Fails Its First Test: Weak Pile Can’t Take The Stress (Broken Sidewalk)
- Arena Mayhem: Giant Crater Getting Bigger (Broken Sidewalk)
- New ‘Arena District’ Paving Nice, Kinda Bland (Broken Sidewalk)
- Arena Mayhem: Preparing A Giant Crater (Broken Sidewalk)
Click through for a gallery of shoring wall & construction photos.
Snapshot: Fleur-de-Lis On Main
Fleur-de-Lis on Main
The luxury mixed-use residential development on the corner of Main Street and Preston Street has taken longer than anyone expected, but construction continues on the 5-story, 82-unit building. The Fleur-de-Lis on Main is finishing up masonry construction and has several more windows and metal panels to install before the majority of work will turn to the interior. The western-most portion of the building has for some time offered glimpses of what the finished project will ultimately look like: traditional brick and stone with jagged, sleek metal and glass interruptions.
The Fleur-de-Lis’ 82 units range in size from 1000 to 200 square feet and are listed between $240,000 and $540,000. The building has its own 150-car underground garage and includes two interior landscaped courtyards with water features as well as a roof deck. The sidewalk level is lined with 18,000 square feet of retail that opens onto the courtyards but given how the economy has slaughtered this end of town, it may be a while before we see that space filled. Less than half of the units are sold, but given the building’s amenities and design & construction quality, the Fleur-de-Lis should be able to quicken sales as the housing market gains strength.
- Fleur-de-Lis on Main (Official Site)
- Fleur-de-Lis: Slow and Steady (Broken Sidewalk)
- Fleur-de-Lis Condos Skinned (Broken Sidewalk)
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