d street housing - sacramento, california

D Street Housing is a compact urban infill project occupying a long-vacant lot in Sacramento’s Mansion Flats district, a demographically and culturally diverse neighborhood that, for decades, has struggled with the effects of urban flight and disinvestment.   As one of the area’s first ground-up residential developments in decades, D Street Housing is more than just a contemporary addition to a struggling community; it is a harbinger of urban revitalization in a neighborhood that is being rediscovered by young families, students, and artists as an affordable place close to downtown Sacramento. 

The project is organized as a dense cluster of eight homes, grouped in pairs of two-story-buildings.  Four units are located directly along D Street, where they repair the historic street edge established by the existing adjacent buildings; the other four sit in the back of the lot, pushed closely to the property line along the back alley to maximize the size of a central green space that accommodates individual backyards.

The design of the buildings is based on a careful study of Mansion Flats’ existing housing stock, creating a contemporary addition to an area with a broad mix of architectural styles, roof forms, and façade materials.  Most of the existing homes in the neighborhood are simple, two-story forms articulated by additive features such as porches, living room bays, or garages.  Adopting this formal strategy and echoing the volumetric cadence of its neighbors, each building of D Street Housing is composed of an elongated stucco volume that is complemented by a varnished, interlocking wood ribbon.  Adding a natural, warm accent to the overall material palette, the wood ribbon wraps the cantilevered upper level bedroom and slightly rises above the main roofline. The wood-clad cantilever and the recessed garage bay break down the perceived building mass and establish a deep, rhythmic profile along the street. 

Not merely an exterior appliqué, the wood ribbon functions as an integral design element that ties together the building’s interior and exterior, folding into each house as a wood ceiling that delineates the open living hall on the first floor. The long, narrow space accommodates kitchen, dining, and lounging.  Large sliding glass doors bookend the space, providing access to a small covered porch in the front and connecting to a patio and small yard in the back.  Stairs lead up to the second floor to an open study and the home’s three bedrooms.  Floor-to ceiling apertures, strategically placed to ensure privacy from close-by neighbors, provide an abundance of natural light and ventilation.