A mixed-use rental building at the corner of 1964 Oak Bay Avenue and 1513 Amphion Street, designed to promote an improved public realm, community connectivity and car-lite living.
The South Jubilee neighbourhood—and specifically the Oak Bay Village—features a fine-grain road pattern with short blocks, providing multiple connectivity options in all directions. Key corridors like Oak Bay Avenue facilitate East/West movement, while Foul Bay Road and Richmond Road support North/South travel, serving vehicles, buses, pedestrians and cyclists. We are exploring the opportunity to narrow a portion of the Amphion Street roadway to divert non-local traffic and lower vehicle speeds while maintaining essential mobility and services for residents.
The programming of the building is configured to respond to both the commercially oriented Oak Bay Avenue alongside the calm and residential nature of Amphion Street. The ground floor of the building offers a generous setback along Oak Bay Avenue, allowing for an outdoor patio for a café, restaurant or other commercial retail unit (CRU) business that will act as the commercial anchor on the street corner.
Along Amphion Street, the public nature of the ground level program begins to transition towards more private space. The CRU ends at the residential lobby, after which ground oriented live/work lofts bring a gentler activation along the street edge. A small setback from the property line to the live/work lofts offers a softening of the sidewalk to the front entrances of the homes with a raised planter. The final transition of the building to the rest of the residential street begins where the live/ work homes end. A generous open space offers a few parking stalls for the building, adjacent an open breezeway which delivers a strong visual connection to the vibrant garden at the back of the site.
Shadow analysis influences the building's design, ensuring minimal impact on the surrounding community and environment. Thoughtful setbacks and tiered levels are incorporated to allow natural light to permeate the site throughout the year, while still meeting the community's housing needs.
