A New Wedge in Lemon Grove

Cit­ron Court is located in sunny Lemon Grove min­utes east from down­town San Diego.  The project was built by devel­oper Com­mu­nity Col­lec­tive and designed by a friend of mine, Mike Bur­nett, AIA, prin­ci­pal of the archi­tec­ture firm Foun­da­tion­For­Form.  Cit­ron Court is a mixed-use infill devel­op­ment that brings 36 units of afford­able hous­ing atop of two street-level com­mer­cial spaces along a main com­mer­cial cor­ri­dor. Cit­ron Court was com­pleted in June 2009 and fam­i­lies, sin­gle young pro­fes­sion­als and retired seniors call this home.  This project was the first new mixed-use devel­op­ment using smart-growth prin­ci­ples and eco­log­i­cally friendly design in the city of Lemon Grove design, and could be used as model for future development.

The mod­ern designed com­plex encom­passes a skinny city block and is a col­or­ful col­lec­tion of two and three story build­ings con­tain­ing apart­ments and town­homes sur­round­ing a series of court­yards.  Sim­ple and bud­get friendly mate­ri­als were selected and exe­cuted in both effi­cient and cre­ative ways to high­light and engage its sur­round­ings.  The design fea­tures numer­ous recesses and voids through­out the struc­ture, along with vary­ing col­ors and the dance of shade and shad­ows helps reduce the over­all build­ing mass­ing.  Col­or­ful drought-tolerant land­scap­ing high­lights the park­ways and cre­ates a buffer between the street and park­ing garages.

Take a look at Com­mu­nity Collective’s web­site for more infor­ma­tion about the oth­ers involved on the project, more infor­ma­tion about Cit­ron Court and their future projects.

www.community-collective.com

Images by Joseph M. Reid

05. September 2009 by jmr_arch
Categories: Architecture, Photography | Leave a comment