'08 REGION 6 South Central - AR, LA, OK, TX

Project Name: The Hillside
Project Location: Austin, Texas
Designer/Architect: JZMK Partners, Irvine, Calif.
Builder: Senderro Construction Services, Austin, Texas
Developer: CSGM Canyon Ridge, Austin, Texas
Land Planner: JZMK Partners, Irvine, Calif.

The site was a beauty: About 20 acres of hillside covered with cedar and oak trees and boasting views of downtown Austin. But therein lay a major challenge, since nearly all the indigenous trees had to remain intact. Texas limestone beneath a thin layer of topsoil limited cuts in the land to four feet. And due to impervious cover regulations, there wasn’t much room for roads and parking.

The design and building team walked the site numerous times to determine the best placement for 101 single-family attached units, ranging from 1,015 to 2,395 square feet. They fit the buildings between the trees and worked with the grading requirement by varying the building footprints.