Mogavero Architects

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Sac State American River Courtyard

Replacing a 60-year-old outmoded dormitory, American River Courtyard Student Housing is the initial step of transforming California State University, Sacramento from a commuter destination to one with a campus life community. The building achieved LEED Gold certification and was named the Best Public Project of 2009 by the Sacramento Business Journal. The project creates architectural integrity and scale while relating to surrounding student housing, acting as an icon for the University’s residential district. When the project was completed, CSUS was presented with a check for $75,000 from SMUD for exceeding the state’s energy efficiency standard by 35%. We facilitated this efficiency with lighting, solar hot water heating systems and building controls, the preservation of existing trees and installation of water efficient landscaping. The site is organized to create memorable places that define graduated levels of community. A courtyard creates a stage for student life, reinforcing the notion of community while the exterior design recognizes the context of the existing residence halls as well as newer buildings on campus. Architectural elements respond to diverse functions and create a lively visual experience through the composition of varied textures and colors. In the courtyard, special attention was paid to circulation for pedestrians and cyclists. Bicycle parking is accommodated along the main circulation paths, providing convenient access and storage.

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Lexington Apartments

This mixed use project in Davis has 122 student apartments and 3,100 square feet of ground floor commercial space combined with central common areas to provide opportunities for social contact between student residents and create a friendly community feel. Common facilities that include a community building with recreation and exercise facilities, a laundry, and open study rooms were placed in key locations to enliven the project site and provide natural surveillance by the residents for added safety. The site allows for excellent non-vehicular connection to the UC Davis campus and was designed to be pedestrian oriented with wide, shaded sidewalks, narrow drives, and hidden parking in several locations. Retail and office space on the ground floor establish an interface with the street, and the 3-story residence buildings were designed to allow for maximum connection between buildings and landscape with porches in varied positions, generous balconies and covered walkways that penetrate buildings. The residences are a combination of ground floor flats and 2-story townhouses. The units were designed to provide extra privacy and living space for student lifestyles, balancing the needs of quiet study time with (sometimes loud) social activities.

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UC Davis Tercero 2 Student Housing

Our firm was charged with developing a program and implementing an interactive schematic design process for this 592 bed, dormitory style student housing project. The resultant LEED Gold project incorporates 30% water and energy savings along with storm water detention and treatment, natural ventilation, recycled materials and on-site renewable energy. Our firm provided site massing studies and constructability value analyses followed by an area-wide site planning effort that organizes existing and future housing projects on the UC Davis campus. The project creates community at ascending levels, accommodating differing comfort levels while allowing for varying levels of resident interaction. Plans encourage social engagement, balancing accessibility and safety with the need for solitude. Common spaces are carefully located with spatial visibility as a goal: a place to see and to be seen while contributing to a greater sense of community. In this way, students are able to establish a sense of ownership, taking care of their ‘home’ while being engaged with their surroundings. Floor plans from the University’s recent housing projects were analyzed as a way of developing prototypical clusters of student rooms, serving as building blocks for floor configuration and amenity layout. Window seats reinforce hallways as gathering spaces, defining each cluster while working in concert with the building’s passive ventilation system. Hallways end in vistas to the campus community, providing an open, airy feel to corridors and connection to the campus at large. New cluster design with window seats Sustainable site drainage‚ percolation swales, pervious concrete Motion detector ramp up/dim down Hallway lighting Natural ventilation system using stair towers to circulate air Beat Title 24 by more than 32% Daylight harvesting Natural ventilation system Solar water heating

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7th & H Affordable Housing

Our firm led a multi-disciplinary team of design professionals for this eight-story mid-rise, mixed-use project for Mercy Housing California. Located in downtown Sacramento and surrounded by myriad government and industrial land uses, this post-tensioned concrete building consists of 150 affordable residential individual units atop a clinic space for residents and accompanied by ground floor retail. The project sought to build a community within the building, contribute to the vibrancy of the neighborhood, and connect to the community at large. We achieved this through a variety of design approaches, including an activated streetscape, well-designed, visible common area spaces and distinct community rooms and balconies on the upper floors. The unique Z shape plan creates two large landscaped outdoor terraces on the second floor. The clinic on the ground floor is designated for resident use as part of a comprehensive wellness program for this special needs resident group. The roof is crowned by a dramatic solar panel array that provides energy to heat water and power the building. Our team’s passion for sustainable design coupled with our integrated design approach for building, energy and water systems provide a high-level of comfort for residents, provide for improved indoor air quality, and allow for efficient day lighting to deliver occupant satisfaction at very low operating costs. Using collaborative, integrated design practices and strategies helped to reduce the project’s ecological footprint and allowed us to achieve a truly green building, while satisfying all the programmatic goals.

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Capitol Yards

Located just over the Tower Bridge from downtown Sacramento, The Capitol Yards is a market rate apartment development that is designed to inspire community in an urban setting, embracing the concept of ‘together alone’ with a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces and unit configurations. There are two building types in two phases: phase 1 consists of courtyard buildings that include 270 studio, one and two bedroom and penthouse units; and phase 2, our Tower Bridge Gateway building, four stories tall with structured parking that includes live/work, studio, one and two bedroom and penthouse units. Combined, both phases will build out to 350 units. The courtyard buildings are under construction. Each pair of buildings is arranged on the site to create pedestrian courtyards with facing porches and front doors, site furnishings and amenities such as barbeques, fountains, pool, spa and a stage. Spaces can accommodate individuals or groups and are themed with varying plant palettes. The courtyard buildings have tuck-under, garage parking, dramatically reducing the amount of paved surface on the site. The dwelling units wrap around the parking on the ground floor on three sides of the buildings. These end wraps narrow the aperture of alley entrances, creating building frontages at the street and providing a neighborhood context that is not interrupted by massive parking areas or excessive driveways

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The Arbors

The Arbors at Oak Park is a senior, mixed-use project in Sacramento on a prominent corner with in the Oak Park neighborhood. This mixed-use redevelopment project is an important and highly visible component of the continuing revitalization of Oak Park, Sacramento’s first “street car suburb.”  It contains 56 one bedroom units of affordable, senior housing with ground floor retail. To mark the re-connection of the site to the community, the project features active, pedestrian oriented retail shops that focus on a “living room” at the courtyard the corner of MLK and Broadway.  The streets are lined with landscaping providing a comfortable and welcoming pedestrian environment. Designed to improve the sense of safety, the project activates the street frontage with ground floor retail. By providing over thirty units with windows and balconies that front directly on the street, much needed life is given to the neighborhood. The building is designed to maximize comfort and health for the senior occupants.  Features such as south facing sunshades, natural day lighting, flow through ventilation and ample community spaces, make the project both comfortable and energy efficient.

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Maple Park

Tucked away in rural Live Oak in Sutter County, and a few blocks from the main avenue, were 30 wartime-era affordable housing units that were falling apart and slowly becoming abandoned. It was determined that rehabilitation was unfeasible and the site was transformed, providing 56 units of low income family housing in 3 story buildings. The property is surrounded by a pedestrian friendly loop road and complemented by a central open space and community building. An agricultural vernacular is expressed in the buildings with expansive shed roofs, citrus accent colors and a playful mix of siding patterns. Garden areas and courtyards allow residents to grow their own food, socialize and build community. The project consists of 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units with a central community building that contains a daycare facility for preschoolers. Each unit has storage, a private patio or balcony, and a washer/dryer.  The buildings face narrow, pedestrian friendly streets and create park-like courts of various sizes.  Parking is tucked under the buildings and does not dominate the site. Given the lack of municipal storm drainage, all runoff is retained and allowed to infiltrate the site, and numerous green features are incorporated into the design: energy performance 26-30% above T24; Green Point Rated 118pts.; low VOC materials and finishes; high thermal mass design; variable speed HVAC fans; ceiling fans; energy star appliances; low E dual pane operable windows and shades; construction/demolition waste reduction; efficient lighting; materials with recycled content; water conserving fixtures; a community garden;  and water conserving landscape. The project is designed to accommodate future solar hot water and photovoltaic systems which will make it a Net Zero community. Designed to create a centrally located community space the site includes a new community building as the focal point, with a portion of the building dedicated to day care for up to 20 pre-school aged children who participate in the local Head Start Program.  Adult education classes for project residents are held in the adjacent, larger rooms.  Outdoor open spaces are located near existing trees and have become small courts that subdivide the site into smaller communities.  Gum Street, which previously was a dead end, has been extended through the site to create a stronger connection with the surrounding neighborhood. The private, narrow driveway-like loop slows cars and creates a safe pedestrian oriented space. All unit entries are visible from the street and create focal points for informal interaction and gathering.

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McKinley Village Clubhouse

2017 Gold Winner – NAHB’s Best in American Living Awards McKinley Village is an urban village in the core of Sacramento that combines the qualities of the city’s most successful urban neighborhoods with design features that give this neighborhood distinctive character. The 4,200 sf recreation center for a community of 328 homes serves as the community’s civic center; offering a pool, community gathering space, and an area for retail use such as a cafe, restaurant, or yoga studio. Bikeways and walkways stitch together the neighborhood and connect McKinley Village, McKinley Park, Midtown, Sutter’s Landing Park and the American River Parkway. The design of the Recreation Center enhances the character of East Sacramento, with distinguishing neighborhoods like McKinley Park, Meister Terrace and East Portal Park. As the neighborhood’s community facility, the building was designed with sweeping roof forms and deep overhands that define and engage outdoor spaces while also shading large expanses of glass. The building’s design is enriched by details such as brick patterning, expressive structure, and interconnection to the site. Natural Ventilation The McKinley Recreation Center is a 4,200 sf clubhouse with a 34’ tall passive downdraft cooling tower. The tower takes advantage of the prevailing winds, plus the higher relative density of cold air to create passive cooling at a tiny fraction of the cost of traditional mechanical cooling. Air enters the top of the tower where evaporation from a wet medium cools the air. The heavy cold air then naturally falls down the tower into the space below. The building’s control systems regulate the tower intake. Hot air is exhausted through motorized windows at the top of monitors on the north and down wind side of the building. The resulting system is very simple to operate and maintain because it relies on natural movement of hot and cold air rather than energy intensive compression cooling of the space. It also allows the building to be open to the outdoors during many of the warmer months.

Blog

Happy Veterans Day! Celebrating Mather Veterans Village

To commemorate Veterans Day, we are honored to announce the official grand opening of Mather Veterans Village, the long-awaited and multi-phase project with Mercy Housing California, Nation’s Finest, and the City of Rancho Cordova. On Tuesday, October 12th 2021, a decade-long endeavor to create affordable veterans housing came to fruition. Mogavero Architects was fortunate enough to join members from the development teams, City officials, and current and future residents of the project at the dedication ceremony for all three phases of Mather Veterans Village. Utilizing a portion of the former Mather Air Force Base site, 100 permanent supportive homes and 47 units of transitional housing were constructed with the intention of housing low-income and unhoused veterans in the Greater Sacramento area. Then known as the Mills Field base, the United States Army Aviation Section opened Mather in February of 1918. The site was later expanded upon and served vital importance in the training and housing of Air Force and Army members in World War II and the Cold War. In 1993, the nearly 6-acre site and its facilities were decommissioned for closure and sat largely abandoned for the subsequent years. As of 2020, California alone accounted for over 30% of veterans experiencing homelessness in the United States. With 93,000 total veterans residing in the Sacramento region, the former Mather Field base offered a unique, vital opportunity to address the crucial housing and care of our veterans. A cross-sector, collaborative partnership between the City of Rancho Cordova, Mercy Housing, and Nation’s Finest began to take shape in the early stages of planning. Mogavero Architects was engaged for participation in the project in 2010 and dedicated our design energy to creating a space that would provide security, comfort, support, and community for future residents. In addition to the permanent and temporary housing, the completed Mather Veterans Village project features on-site counseling and healthcare service facilities, communal kitchen and dining services, an ample courtyard, and a repurposed Military Infirmary building to create a multipurpose community space. The project exceeds California’s Energy code by 25% and utilizes green building features such as greywater recycling, solar thermal arrays, natural ventilation, and drought-friendly landscaping. Many of the project’s residences are reserved for veterans coming directly out of homelessness and veterans with physical or mental disabilities. The Mather Field site is just two blocks from Rancho Cordova’s VA Medical Center, which provides support to these residents including medical services and counseling. With Sacramento hosting California’s second-highest unhoused veteran population, the redevelopment of the Mather Air Force Base into a revived residential community was a task of the utmost importance. After over 100 years of history, Mather Field is a home to our finest once again. Happy Veterans Day from Mogavero Architects, and thank you to all who have and will serve.     Resources from: https://www.afcec.af.mil/Home/BRAC/Mather/History/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/03/18/the-number-of-veterans-experiencing-homelessness-rose-slightly-even-before-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ https://www.cityofranchocordova.org/Home/Components/News/News/4282/19 Photography courtesy of John Swain.

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Meadow View Place at Schaffer’s Mill in Truckee

Meadow View Place at Schaffer’s Mill is a new affordable housing development that will soon be open to 56 families in Truckee, CA. Neighborhood Partners, LCC. is behind this project, which will offer a site layout that blends seamlessly with the natural beauty of the surrounding tree-filled Sierra Nevada landscape. The residences, consisting of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, are designed to take advantage of the climate by providing cross ventilation. Strong emphasis is placed on energy efficiency and use of natural daylight. Stormwater and snow melt will be addressed with on- and off-site bio-retention areas.  The landscaping is complimentary with the local vernacular. The buildings will have rooftop solar panels to achieve zero-net-energy usage and help fulfill the projects commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.   To learn more about this project or apply to the waiting list, check out the Mountain Housing Council’s website here.