Tempe Micro Estates

This residential development contains thirteen small (600 sf) houses and a communal space. The main inspiration sprung from existing “microneighborhood” concepts, such as “Grow” Community on Bainbridge Island, WA. The designers of Tempe Micro Estates minimized parking and kept all spaces on the smaller north-west corner of the L-shaped lot. This reduces hard paving and maximizes space for gardens and food production. The communal space was placed directly adjacent to the street and parking.

The community contains a variety of scales of space. In descending order, these include the central garden space, communal space (with adjacent exterior gathering space), semi-private patios, and individual home interior spaces.

Each house has one side against a side property lot-line, constructed as a 1-hour wall without openings. The opposite side would allow for a semiprivate exterior space. This required each home to contain a bedroom mezzanine with stairs. To save space, the bathroom is placed beneath the stair. An adequate small kitchen has a picture window at the sink that faces the main garden. The unit contains no hallways or unusable space, with the possible exception of the stair. Two interior walls contain the bathroom, which keeps the construction efficient and the living area as flexible and spacious as possible. The roof slopes upward towards and over the mezzanine, providing a single large open space. Four windows provide almost all the needed light for the home during the day, while just three artificial lights suspended within the tall space provide adequate light at night. The client is a non-profit land-trust and the site was purchased with HUD funds, which required adhering to various federal government guidelines and benchmarks.