- Project Type: Multi-Family
- Location: Placitas, New Mexico
Placitas, New Mexico, is a beautiful artists community that includes a mix of retirees, hippies, King of Spain land grant families, and Native Americans. Given the aging current population, the need for senior housing has been increasingly conspicuous. As people age, they don’t have a housing option that keeps them in Placitas. Their primary option is to move to Albuquerque, which is 20 miles away geographically but a world away in terms of community relationships and the cultural vibe.
The homes in our design followed a traditional Southwestern aesthetic based on adobe construction techniques. They were arranged in little plazas – groupings of duplexes and triplexes arranged around a courtyard that emulated the Spanish style of courtyard buildings that’s prevalent in New Mexico. This created a comfortable microclimate between the buildings – this is extremely helpful given the setting of a severe desert.
That clustering of the homes allowed for a lot more sharing of resources. With that kind of proximity, you’re able to share heating and cooling systems, water systems, laundry facilities, and deep freezers, for example. In addition, each home was carefully placed on the hillsides to cause the least environmental damage, to reduce the potential for erosion, and to create the easiest pedestrian access internally on the site, which is all connected by pathways. In addition, the community was designed to be net-zero energy, to meet passive house standards, and to do rainwater capturing and gray water reuse.
The Common House was designed to be arts-focused and included a pavilion and studio that would support painting, fabric arts, and weaving. A wood shop and welding space were owned by an adjacent neighbor, to be shared with this community.
The group forming the community grew beautifully and had an excellent design process and a good budget. In addition to working with Caddis Collaborative, they worked with CoHousing Solutions and local builder Jim Maduena.
Ultimately, the county planning department declined to approve the project. While Placitas Sage didn’t get built, the relationships that were formed during the planning process have endured to this day. They still call themselves Placitas Sage, they still hang out together, and they have a meditation group and other activities. They subdivided the land, and many of the members moved on to it. Instead of it being a cohousing community, it’s single-family homes – but with an added dose of community.
