Cameron Street Housing: an exercise in urban residential design

Abstract

In order to make a more attractive and efficient built environment, residential architecture must be incorporated into the fabric of the city. The most successful cities have a mixture of business and residential activities. In most cities, business flourishes in the center, while housing is pushed out to the edges. This causes the city centers to be occupied by day, but abandoned at night. A city with integrated housing becomes a community, a place where people call home. When the city becomes a backyard, it is thought of more carefully and considered to be more important. For this to take place, good urban housing must exist to accommodate the people who will make the city come to life. This urban housing must be attractive enough to make people want to stay for long periods of time and invest in their own improvements. Personalization and pride in a city allow its residents to feel safe and comfortable. When someone respects the place they live in, they respect the environment around it. In other words, good housing is the foundation for a successful community. The objective of this project was to architecturally manifest an urban residential complex that could foster pride and personal identity for the city dweller. The Cameron Street Housing site provided the perfect arena for this objective in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. The existing surroundings called for a medium density complex that respected the historical styles and showed innovation to accommodate contemporary living. The concept of the project centered around the separation and identity of one's home, the creation of a community within a community, and the use of thresholds to provide layers of space between the public and the private. The forms and materials reflect the surrounding typology without imitating it; the living units conform to modern living without limiting the types of family structures that can inhabit them, and the site provides a sanctuary for its residents while it gives something back to the community. The Cameron Street Housing design stands as an example of what urban housing can do to improve the city around it.