Update: Renderings & Floor Plans v1

Over the past few weeks we have begun creating floor plans and renderings of our project. We understand that any design project is iterative, so we are creating this blog post to serve as the first of many as we go about creating and designing our project in both 2D and 3D formatting, using Illustrator, AutoCAD and SketchUp.

The first 3D sketch of our building shows the armature of the structure. This rendering is to scale and shows the bones of the building, displaying the number of floors, two separate commercial spaces for the ground floor, and skylights on the roof. This was a very, very basic first sketch to get ourselves thinking about the building. Additionally, we rearranged the plan for each floor of the building, turning communal floors into fully residential floors, some with mixed uses. After visiting the building, we decided that there wasn't a need for full-floor office or community space, and the daycare center could be located on the ground floor. This will allow for additional residential units, including condos in the prime real estate top floors. Not only will this provide more housing, but it will also bring in additional income.

Original Plan

Updated Plan

As of now, we are still working through the exact layouts for the residential floors. Several of these floors will contain SRO units, and they will possibly be mixed with an affordable studio or one-bedroom apartment to take advantage of the windowless east-facing side that cannot accommodate SROs. The final floor plans will be developed in AutoCAD, but Illustrator is being used for preliminary drafts, shown below.

After visiting the site and seeing that most floors have existing kitchens in the rear of the building (north-facing side), these first 2 drafts of the SRO floors maintain the shared kitchen placement to minimize construction costs and maximize existing plumbing and gas lines.

SRO Floor Plan - Option 1

SRO Floor Plan - Option 2

Option #1 uses all west- and south-facing windows for SROs, with a large common space due to the unusable windowless wall. Option #2 borrows space from that windowless wall to build out a studio or one bedroom apartment, replacing 2 SROs with a single, likely affordable-rate, apartment. This option incorporates one of the existing bathrooms into the private apartment, again to minimize construction costs and utilize existing plumbing lines. Each floor has a different number of west-facing windows, so that will most likely dictate how many SROs can be accommodated on each floor.