Indigo: Parks + Mews
Richmond, Texas
Summary
Indigo is styled as a New Urbanist Community that includes a variety of housing types, narrow streets, alley-loaded homes, generous green spaces, and a range of community amenities. The first phase of project includes 260 homes sites, 4.5 acres of parks, temporary sports fields, and dog park. Efficient street layout and introduction of alleys allow the front of homes to live closer to the street and green spaces while encouraging cars and services to use the alleys. This framework allows residents connect through four acres of walkable, people-centric, green corridors called Mews. The idea of front-porch living and “free range” children naturally unfolds when residents have access to safe, enclosed, and vibrant communal park spaces at their front door.
Project Stats
Project Size:
4.5 Acres
Project Type:
Parks + Open Space
Scope :
Schematic Design
Through Construction
Client:
Collaborators :
What's In A Mews?
Mews are home to community gathering areas, passive play elements, and a vast trail network. Homes fronting directly on the street will notice the narrow streets, bulb-outs at corners and flush, table-top crossings in the streets where trails intersect. The combination of these traffic-calming mechanisms encourage vehicles to drive slower and provide awareness while traveling though this pedestrian-first neighborhood.
Healthier Communities
Most planned communities are designed around vehicles, but changes in the housing market along with higher consumer expectations create an opportunity to reimage suburban communities. The vehicle’s dominance in the suburbs is reflected in wide streets, long driveways, and half-empty parking lots. Land values, material costs, and home prices continue to increase. The natural solution to these challenges is to allow narrower lots thereby providing density within communities. However, narrower lots and increased density provide associated design challenges. For instance, driving down a neighborhood street with car-parked driveways becomes reminiscent of linear parking lots. Furthermore, green spaces and pedestrian connections are pinched and less usable as short-term financial success drives decision-making. To many, this is normal, to others its alarming. However, there is small group of forward thinking innovators that see these constraints as an opportunity to work alongside communities, local businesses, and municipalities to answer thoughtful suburban growth.
Schematics
