SILER YARD

The Siler Yards housing project sits on a former City of Santa Fe storage and maintenance yard. The project is organized around a spine of trees, landscape, and pathways that is intended to encourage interaction and creativity amongst its residents. The spine is bordered by an acequia ditch and multi modal path to the north and a basketball court and playground gathering spaces to the south.

Surroundings planned the site in order to encourage connections in the community via a core that would allow multiple access points into the units and a public corridor for showing and sharing work.  All public spaces are intended for multi use options, such as a plaza that can be a quiet, contemplative space or a place to set up an outdoor market.

Project description from AOS Architects:

Led by Creative Santa Fe and New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing, the Siler Yard: Arts+Creativity Center provides urgently needed live/work housing and an affordable community studio space for the city’s lower-income artistic workforce. The project provides a space for creative entrepreneurs to find financial independence while building their careers. The project has been awarded low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) funding through the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority and ground breaking is anticipated for February 2020.

Siler Yard features a 65-unit affordable housing development that includes eight residential buildings with four different configurations that maximize space and natural light. Each home features high ceilings and work studios that look out to a central spine of greenery that connects a plaza, playgrounds, and a shared workspace building. Designed to be energy-efficient, rooftop solar arrays will generate all the energy necessary to sustain the development. 

An innovative public engagement effort, funded through an NEA Our Town grant, brought together over 30 creative members of the community to consult on the project’s programming and design. The project is designed to serve the needs of diverse and economically disadvantaged groups in the community whose contributions have shaped Santa Fe into the artistic and cultural hub it is today. 

LOCATION:
Santa Fe, NM

CLIENT:
Creative Santa Fe + NM Inter-Faith Housing

SERVICES PROVIDED: Master Planning Landscape Architecture

PRESS: Hyperallergic