PB Design Awards: 20 award-winning projects that reflect today’s buyers

MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL - PLATINUM AWARD

Residence 3 at the Villas at Pacific Shores
Huntington Beach, Calif.

At a glance, the Villas at Pacific Shores appear to be detached housing, with highly stylized and individualized elevations, varying heights, and deep setbacks. Yet the development is an attached community that comfortably fits 10 spacious units to the acre. Inside, the similarities to detached living continue, with a traditional foyer leading to a spacious great room, kitchen with a large island and breakfast nook, and a covered patio and courtyard on the side of the unit.

In all, the Residence 3 model — the largest of three plans offered by the builder at 4,142 square feet — features four covered decks to enable residents to take in the community’s coastal setting, which is only three blocks from the beach. The unit offers five bedrooms, including a second-floor master suite with an adjacent laundry room, as well as five and a half baths, a three-car garage, and an optional loft in lieu of the third-floor bedroom. The builder also offers an optional elevator.

“This project is so leading edge and so much of what has to be happening in today’s market,” said PB Design Awards judge Donald Evans. “It feels like a custom home community, with every house having a different elevation, color, and flavor. You can look at it from the front elevation or the rear elevation and you cannot tell that they’re attached; they are so well done. And the beauty is this project can be built anywhere.”

Submitter: Christopher Homes (builder)
Architect: Scheurer Architects
Photographer: Christopher Mayer Photography

Size: 4,142 sf
Sale price: $1.23 million
Average sales per month: 2
Completion: June 2014
No. of units: 78
Density: 10 units/acre

MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL - GOLD AWARD

Legacy Apartments at Dove Mountain
Marana, Ariz.

Determined to create a rental community that breaks the mold of the typical bland, big-box apartment complex, developers John Graham, Scott Lundberg, and Brian Peschel looked outside the rental design profession for inspiration and fresh ideas. They found their man in custom-home architect Ron Robinette, who had designed dozens of homes in and around Tucson, Ariz., during his 27-year design career, but never a multi-family rental complex.

Robinette answered the call with a design scheme that offers a resort-style setting and upscale amenities, while holding to a budget for market-rate apartments. Since the medium-density development could have only a limited amount of open space, the design team decided to focus the shared spaces in and around the single-story recreation center, which features a large pool, fire pit, spa, putting green, fitness center, business center, and lounge — all designed and detailed as eloquently as one of Robinette’s custom-home projects.

To minimize the scale of the taller apartment buildings and differentiate the 12 structures from one another, Robinette articulated the buildings with a two-tone color scheme, stone veneer accents, and regionally historic block masses that provide offsets for shade.

“Whereas the typical apartment building is stacked, with nearly identical balconies and floor layouts, we made them asymmetrical using different heights and massing,” says Robinette. “If you’re downstairs, you may get a covered porch, but those upstairs may have a partially covered porch.” One of the biggest investments, he says, was cladding the balconies and stairwells in stucco — “The developers didn’t want the typical steel, open-rail stairs that you would see around Tucson.”

The site plan situates the majority of the two-story rental buildings along the east and north perimeters to take advantage of the mountain and city views. This allows the developers to charge a premium for many of the perimeter units, as well as the poolside apartments.
Inside the apartments, the design team went with an off-white scheme that, while only subtly different from other apartments in the area, “is the kind of thing that makes it look much more residential than other units,” says Robinette.

Submitter: Robinette Architects, Inc. (architect,
interior designer)
Builder: W.E. O’Neil
Developer: Legacy Apartments at Dove
Mountain, LLC
Photos, plan: Courtesy of Robinette Architects

Size: 698 sf, 852 sf, 935 sf, 1,142 sf
No. of units: 168, plus recreation center and detached garages
Completion date: September 2011

MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL - SILVER AWARD

B Major Plan at Bancroft Green
Philadelphia

Designed and built to achieve LEED for Homes Platinum certification, this multi-family development in the heart of Philadelphia has a number of intriguing green and energy-efficiency features to attract urban buyers, including geothermal HVAC with dual zones for increased comfort and 100-percent reclaimed brick. The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath plan offers four levels of living space (including a lower-level family room), plus a spacious rooftop patio with a partially vegetated roof. In honoring the project with a Silver Award, the PB Design Awards judges noted the team’s creative use of materials, application of green features, and rich architectural details.

Submitter: Simplex Homes (builder)
Photos: Simplex Homes

Size: 1,650 - 1,900 sf
Hard costs (excluding land): $154/sf
Sale price: $560,000
Completion: March 2011
Average sales per month: 0.63
No. of units: 11

MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL - MERIT AWARD

Indigo plan at the Grand Vista Collection of Brambleton
Ashburn, Va.

The PB Design Awards judges recognized this spacious end-unit townhouse with a special Merit Award for its well-thought-out interior architecture, especially its dramatic great room. “This unit has a true great room,” said judge Larry Garnett, noting that the great room space not only ties the kitchen, dining, and living areas together, but also establishes an indoor-outdoor connection using multiple over-sized windows. As a result, the space is open and flooded with natural light and views of green space to the rear of the property. Large sliding glass doors provide easy access to a patio for indoor-outdoor living and entertaining.

Submitter: Miller and Smith (builder)
Architect: Creaser/O’Brien Architects
Interior designer: Carlyn and Company
Developer: Brambleton Group
Land planner: Parker Rodriguez
Photographer: Wolfram’s Architectural Photography

Size: 3,300 sf
Hard cost (excluding land): $69.50/sf
Sale price: $483,990
Completion: 2013
Average sales per month: 2
No. of units: 74
Density: 6 units/acre