The project site sits at the far southeast corner of the community, but within comfortable walking distance of the center of town life - The Plaza, as well as within the peddled of the future SMART commuter rail stop. Image Credit: UrbanGreen

RiverHouse nestles amongst heritage trees between manufactured housing, a 1990's SFD subdivision, current industrial properties and the Russian River. Image Credit: Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

RiverHouse represents a Cottage Court style of development, where Heritage trees and tightly woven building placement of 12 residential units , walkways, and a Central Green create interesting public and private spaces on 1.2 acres of land Image Credit: Attention 2 Landscape Architecture

1. RiverHouse Setting – the neighborhood is designed to respond to its context with an appropriate scale, relationship to the public street and the history of the adjoining Russian River. Completed photo credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative. Historic Photo Healdsburg Museum.

2. RiverHouse Objectives –clearly articulated project objectives formed the foundation for RiverHouseʻs design, and was used as the projectʻs Northstar throughout the community approval process. Credit: UrbanGreen, Opticos Design.

3. RiverHouse Aerial Oblique – nestled among 75ʻ tall Redwoods and legacy fruit trees, Riverhouse is a pocket neighborhood of small homes and a diversity of places and spaces for its residents. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

4. RiverHouse: The Green – The Green is the center of life at RiverHouse. A gathering place, the visual forecourt to the river, the center of the stormwater management system and a central park that organizes the front porch life of the community. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

5. RiverHouse The Big Moves – a series of design ʻmovesʻ established the structure, character and lifestyle of RiverHouse. Credit: UrbanGreen, JZMK Partners

6. Heritage Trees – the existing site trees provide fruit, shade and identity to each home, while affording the overall pocket neighborhood a priceless setting and the ability to ʻcheat timeʻ. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

7. The Lawn – The Greenʻs central lawn is the only grass allowed in the water sensitive Northern California community. By design, the most water intensive landscape feature is where it provides the greatest benefit to the residents, and the neighboring community. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

8. Animating the Street – Even though the front doors of all units face The Green, the sides of primary homes facing the public street were fenestrated to ensure the neighborhoodʻs public realm was not given second standing. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

9. The Cottage Walk – front porches, a mixture of home sizes, visual terminus on the grand Redwoods creates a beautiful pedestrian stroll between the homes. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

10. Porch with a View – screened porches extend indoor living to the outdoors while putting ʻlanterns on the greenʻ at night. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

11. The Cottage – at only 1250 SF, the floor plan is extremely efficient, making good use of natural light and spatial volume to ʻlive largeʻ in a small footprint. Image Credit Dana Wood Photography. Floor Plan JZMK Partners

12. The Studios – offering ʻaffordability-by-designʻ RiverHouseʻs four ADUs are intertwined throughtout the community to create interest, face the public realm (rather than being relegated to back yards), create texture and scale variety, all while being deftly used to transition the scale of adjoining properties along the public street. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

13. Studio Details – at just 500 SF, the ADU floor plan creates an efficient one bedroom home. Again volume, great material choice and light allow it to live comfortably and resulted in rapid uptake by buyers. Image Credit Dana Wood Photography. Floor Plan JZMK Partners

14. Selling Scarcity – while floor plans were limited to just two types, each home had a unique personality based on views, existing trees, and proximity to The Green. Rather than sell by addresses, each home was given a specific name derived from the features of that particular unit. This made each home uniquely individual and resulted in not thinking about square feet and instead torn between the lifestyle feature each unit afforded. Image Credit: CRAFT Development, W Marketing

15. Precedent Process – RiverHouseʻs initiation was preceded by a year long community education process led the Developer (working as a consultant) under contract with the City. Challenged to help explain the realities and potential futures for housing, the Developer crafted a series of community workshop drawing on a decade of professional development instruction with ULI. Real time polling at one one workshop led overwhelmingly to community consensus for someone deliver a Cottage Court. Image Credit: UrbanGreen

16. Collaborative Communication – Upon site acquisition, the Developer developed three scenarios that reflected a range of density, environmental, housing product and entitlement outcomes. Evaluating these collaboratively with City staff, the preferred solution reflected innovative approaches, without creating entitlement complexity; while enlisting City staff as partners in the entitlements ahead. Image Credit: Opticos Design

17. Process Communication – during entitlement the Developer engaged the neighborhood through ʻpop upʻ outreach events, and simple but highly effective graphics to explain what could be done as of right vs what a better outcome could look like if the community would embrace of more creative code interpretations. Image Credit: Opticos Design

18. Stewardship – the project set an objective to go beyond stormwater code requirements, resulting in a large infiltration array that sits beneath The Green, providing storage, recharge and protection of the adjoining Russian river. Legacy trees on the site were identified, evaluated for health and then protected during construction using trunk and dripline protection and drilled pier foundations. Image Credit: CRAFT Development

19. Drive Lanes – Cars are held to the exterior of the property to increase the pedestrian nature of the Courtyard. Ganged garage structures are still independend buildings as each home had to have a garage on their own lot to meed the code. PV arrays are treated as a design features leveraging roof pitches designed to optimize solar gain at this latitude. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative

Lifestyle at RiverHouse – The design of RiverHouse has led to an amenitized lifestyle that connects neighbors, sits within – rather than on - the natural setting, provides a range of housing types for a variety of households - all while achieving above the norm density using as-of-right zoning. Credit Kim Carroll, Carroll Creative