Orchard Street Passive House

A Low-Impact urban farmstead that combines High performance building Strategies with advanced landscape technologies

Location | Eugene, Oregon
Project Type | Single-Family Residential
Size | 1050 SF
Completion | 2011

Architecture | Jan Fillinger, design principal Interior Design | Jan Fillinger Lighting Design | Jan Fillinger Landscape Architecture | Justine Lovinger / Lovinger Robertson Landscape Architects Mechanical  |  Alan VanZuuk
Passive House Consultant  |  Jan Fillinger, CPHC; Win Swafford, CPHC Contractor | Eco-Building Collaborative of Oregon

Awards & Publications  |  2010 People's Choice Award: un-built category

Photography  | Mike Dean Photography

This small, elegant & sustainable urban farmstead amplifies the potential of a typical urban lot by leveraging the entire site to help feed and house its owners while simultaneously minimizing water and energy consumption.

Directed by the imaginative yet clear aspirations of the client, the interior and exterior spaces were designed to maximize both sustainability and aesthetic harmony.

Built in a mature, traditional neighborhood threaded throughout with alleyways, the west alley's thin edge determined the location of the freestanding garage and upstairs studio apartment. Angling the garage on the site turns a sun-capturing wall inward towards the urban farm and provides a backdrop for a greenhouse and vertical gardening area. The resulting irregular spaces allow the placement of numerous opportunistic garden nooks, planters, and lush greenery.

Instead of a curb cut and driveway on the main street, a large planting area, graceful fence and beautiful gateway present an elegant garden face to the neighborhood and preserve arable land for food production.