A vacant lot, at the corner of Gordon Avenue and Oxford Street in Lower South Providence, afforded the opportunity to think about the type of building that could serve as an anchor at this prominent crossroads in the community.
In taking cues from the nearby single-family homes and ecclesiastical and school buildings, Union designed a new apartment building for families to bridge the gap between the neighborhood scale and context and the Oxford campus where the existing nine buildings of the Oxford Gardens townhomes and seven-story Oxford Place building are located.
The location allowed the design team to utilize the in-between spaces for amenities, such as a community garden and a shaded outdoor seating area. The building was designed to meet the standards of Passive House with an optimized thermal envelope that includes increased building insulation, high-performance triple-glazed windows, and advanced air-sealing techniques. A solar energy array on the roof offsets overall energy usage.
