The Ash Street Apartments and the Creation of Community By Design

20070928. Last summer I stayed in Noah’s basement at an apartment complex near SE 20th and Ash Street. It is a six-unit property, with two buildings facing each other, each containing three units. There is a grass courtyard between the two properties. I remember being impressed that Noah had developed such close relationships with the other tenants. He only knew them because they lived in the same apartment complex. Sure, he’s a gregarious guy and makes friends easily, but his relationships with the other tenants went beyond just being good neighbors. These people looked out for each other, shared wireless Internet access, watched each other’s kids, played games together, and on and on. When someone fired up the grill, it went without saying that others were welcome to throw something on the coals. It reminded me of dorm living or my first experience living off campus in a communal house when I was an undergrad, except on Ash Street everyone had their own space, with their own kitchens and bathrooms, they could retreat to as they wished.

Noah told me it wasn’t that way when he first moved in. At first, everyone stayed in the zone of influence near their particular unit, as if there was an imaginary grid in the courtyard. Since the units face each other instead of the street, they kept running into each other in the courtyard and were forced to say hi. If the houses had been facing the street, it would have been much easier to maintain the detachment characteristic of most suburban developments. This spontaneous community would probably never have existed. However, the design of the property, in itself, created opportunities for tenants to interact with each other and to develop relationships based on their shared dwelling space. I believe the presence of communal space was integral to creation of the Ash Street community.

My experience last summer impressed upon me the value of communal space in a multi-unit dwelling. It is my intention to incorporate an indoor and an outdoor communal space in every development I undertake, and to introduce designs, where possible, that provide opportunities for strangers to develop the same sort of community I witnessed on Ash Street.