STATION

Mixed-Use Commercial-Residential Development
with Ross Woolley (Woolley Morris Architects)
Princeton Junction, New Jersey
Completed Spring 2021

Panoramic Construction Photo [Mixed-Use Building, Rowhouses]

Construction Closeout Photo [Mixed-Use Building, Rowhouses]

Site Aerials [Including train station and surrounding suburbs, via Google Earth]

A private client’s mixed-use commercial-residential complex near the Princeton Junction Train Station in New Jersey. Sited within a township redevelopment zone, this project consists of six conjoined two-and-one-half-story rowhouses for sale, and a two-story building containing 17 apartments above a 12,000 square-foot ground floor of commercial space for rent.

MIXED-USE BUILDING

Plans [Commercial Ground Floor // Residential Second Floor]

The mixed-use building has a steel structure on the commercial floor, with the upper residential floor framed in wood.

Wall Sections [Typical]

Plan Details [Typical Storefront]

Unit Plans [Typical Apartments]

The 17 apartments consist of nine one-bedroom units, seven two-bedroom units, and one three-bedroom units.

Elevation [West, Princeton Hightstown Rd.]

Construction Closeout Photo [West Elevation]

The building’s traditional formal aesthetic and earth-tone color palette are designed to comply with the context and ordinance of the local township. With a five-minute walk time from the building site to the train station (which is a prime stop at the middle of the Northeast Corridor line), or a five-minute drive time to the Route 1 highway (which runs from Maine to Florida), the project is oriented towards working class early-career professionals who have been priced out of the housing market of the Princeton municipality and the surrounding single-family residential enclaves.

ROWHOUSES

Construction Closeout Photos [Rowhouses, via Bright MLS]

The project’s 3-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom rowhouses have 800 square feet of interior space per unit (not including an enclosed garage). Although their design predates the early 2020s upsurge of work-from-home culture, the rowhouses are fortuitously zoned as “live-work” units.

CONSTRUCTION

Construction Photos [Mixed-Use Building, Rowhouses]

Constructed within a stilted market economy, this project is subject to the complications of the contemporary architectural addiction to the “Quadrivium Industrial Complex” of steel, concrete, glass, and plastic, as described by Mark Jarzombek. As with most American architecture built during the late 2010s and early 2020s, the project’s realization was impeded by exigencies of COVID-era issues with onsite construction, offsite manufacturing, US tariffs on Chinese goods and raw materials, and additional global supply chain bottlenecks. These forces clashed with a persistent mandate from client and contractor for value engineering and cost optimization. Working within these budgetary constraints, we continued to advocate for the most durable and hygienic built-in kitchen and bathroom materials possible; to retain as many in-unit laundry stacks as possible; and for additional resident amenities (including bolstered acoustic insulation, substantial HVAC systems, and energy-efficient wall and window assemblies). Throughout this process, our primary concern was comfort and habitability for the occupant — our foremost constituent.

Mark Jarzombek, “The Quadrivium Industrial Complex” in e-flux architecture (November 11, 2019). [Link here]

PROJECTS: ABODE // CABIN // SEMI-SUB-URBAN // STATION // GREEN // TRANSPOSITORY // TEA-CRETE // LIGHTS // RINGS // NEO-CAIRNS // THESES: POST-MORDIAL (MIT SMArchS) // ISOTOPIA (Syracuse BArch)