On any given day over 50 parentless youths are living ‘out-of-doors’ in Gainesville, sleeping in cars, bushes or in tent cities. Many more are in abusive and fearful environments. Juvenile Development engages the Reichert House project, an intervention agency dedicated to providing a path to productive citizenship. The design team developed a neighborhood housing strategy to provide at risk juveniles family oriented living, nurturing, amenity and the civic connectivity required to succeed in life.

Civic culture germinates in the family, suggesting Family Units rather than institutional living. Ten youths and two ‘parents’ will be provided with a residential scaled home with semi-private exterior courts, family living, dining and social areas on the ground level. The second level organizes ‘bedroom suites’ each with a full bath, storage, study desk and balcony and a group study loft. Family Units are strategically organized on the site to optimize both semi-public program requirements and community shared spaces. Daylight, view and natural air-flow considerations suggested passive environmental control elements such as high insulation semi-transparent polycarbonate panel clerestory windows, balcony doors as operable ventilation elements, ventilation transoms in the core, two-story spatial connectivity for stack and venturi effects, and strategically located fixed glazing and single light doors. Semi-private lawns, gardens and gathering spaces are linked closely with residential buildings folding up into green walls and penetrating the spaces exploiting Alvar Aalto’s humanist architectural strategies.

The site design exploits nurturing as a basic principle of sustainability. Permaculture requires youth investment such as sewing, cultivating and harvesting as an investment ecology. A public podium, projection screen, gathering lawn, neighborhood meeting room/youth classroom, recreational lawns and sports areas provide basic amenities to promote socialization through work, play and recreation. These elements are integrated akin to nearby homes that back-up to public parks allowing neighbors direct access to the public facilities and for the project to support the grain of surrounding residential fabric.

Organic gardens and groves spatially define exterior activities while providing living examples of investment and nurturing methodologies. Composting and cistern irrigation begin to close a portion of the sun, food, water, waste resource loop supporting and exemplifying sustainable living alternatives. Building roofs collect rainwater during the locally intense storm events and sequester it in below ground cisterns for clothes washing, toilet flushing and irrigation during the ever increasing drought periods. Utilizing the rainwater for irrigation provides locked nitrogen and other nutrients that drip from the trees that is not available in the municipal water supply.

Site hydrology is a critical ecological component and important design element. Intense short lived storm events require substantial investment in water retention. Although the project collects water, processing run-off from adjacent streets and overflow will require on-site water retention. A wet retention pond is utilized and stocked with striped bass — may be caught and eaten. Fluvial vegetation, optimized through a high edge to water ratio sequesters hydrocarbons from hard surface run-off effectively cleaning the water. Grasses in-turn provide habitat for bass, frogs, snakes and turtles that feed on rodents and insects such as mosquito larvae. The form, scale and location of the retention ponds optimize edges and wet-dry cycles to support of aquatic life. Specimen oak trees were surveyed and strategically culled to optimize protective shade in exterior spaces and buildings and the need for hours of direct sunlight in the gardens and groves on the site.

Building materials consist of a combination of concrete (recycled aggregate), SIP’s panel, conventional framing, polycarbonate panels, fixed insulating glass and operable windows. Ventilation will provide natural cooling through most of the season yet mechanical cooling is required for at least 3 to 5 months. A ground-loop heat pump will provide efficient (19 to 21 SEER) heating and cooling while eliminating the need for noisy exterior condensing units — preserving the acoustical quality of the natural spaces. Landscape surfaces include elevated hardscape at entry courts and guardian patios, open web pavers for site circulation and granulated recycled concrete for parking. Walkways will use water permeable paving systems. Vegetative ground cover will consist of natural local deluge/drought tolerant prairie grasses and wild flowers with limited lawns suited for sports, play and lounging.

Juvenile Development leverages civic investment in the potential of our youth while enhancing and advancing their opportunities in an economically challenged neighborhood district. The project reintroduces an ethic of compact modes of dwelling; engages an ecologically connected lifestyle; and challenges the present expensive model of post crime incarceration through early intervention, education and life incentives for a high criminal risk juvenile population.