Alameda Ridge Cohousing: Aging-in-Place within Supportive Networks
Portland, Oregon | 2024
A group of individuals intentionally came together with the idea of creating an intentional co-housing community within a supportive, aging-in-place environment. Kina was part of the design team that led the design for the dwellings, common culinary and crafting spaces, a future caretaker space, and the exterior design on this relatively low slope, Alameda Ridge geological formation site in Northeast Portland.
The buildings are arranged to maximize interior daylight, to balance rooftop shade and sun zones to allow for both solar panels and mature trees; and to create privacy from both the adjacent streets, and in between the community’s common spaces and induvial patios at each dwelling. Additionally, the buildings are clustered around a common green, within which are a series of outdoor rooms: a pergola to shade against western light; an outdoor cooking zone and meeting area; covered outdoor workshop-studio spaces; and a regenerative oak micro-habitat located at the north, which additionally acts as both a privacy from neighbors as well as a biodiversity backdrop for the common spaces.
All rainwater is retained on-site and is collected and fed through cisterns to irrigate the vegetated spaces. In addition to creating edible garden zones with planting beds and small fruit shrubs and trees, selective portions will be reforested with native trees -oaks, silk tassel and quaking aspens-, with endemic mid and understory companion planting zones for each micro-zone. With the native plant palette, a goal is to build soil that can remove atmospheric carbon and create specific habitat zones that are mutually beneficial for flora and fauna, including humans.
Equally diverse are the array of builders and sub-contractors, and the age range of the initial group that will live here. In the regard, this project aims to create connections to other green spaces throughout the Alberta- Killingsworth neighborhood and deepen inter-generational community relations.