This studio examined the possibility of a utopian residential development for people seeking a community life based on common interests.  The urban farm imagines inhabitants driven to reconcile their love for life in the city with their desire to become intimately connected to the natural environment.  Here the community lives and grows much of its own food.  It connects with its neighborhood by creating space for a farmer’s market, and engenders for its own inhabitants a year-round relationship with plant growing and fresh air through a central greenhouse.

The architecture draws on the inconography of different aspects of its location and purpose.  Like an extension of the sidewinder wind patterns in the sands on the adjacent beach, it snakes inland.  Its three towers rise like cresting waves from the ocean.  Into the diagonal rise of the towers farm terraces are carved as though from the side of a mountain.

Central to the studio was the application of sustainable design strategies. Passive solar gains are achieved in the south-facing apartments and greenhouse.  Excessive warm-weather insolation is mitigated by overhanging terraces, through the dynamic fenestration pattern on the east, west and north facades, and through a dynamic and responsive shading system for the greenhouse. By utilizing waste through composting toilets and harvesting rainwater, it reduces both resource intake and the generation of pollution.