This project explores the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) recommendation of using existing publicly owned surface parking lots for new, affordable residential development. The site is the large parking lot north of Lincoln High School owned by Seattle Public Schools and  used by the school and the Wallingford Branch Library in the heart of Wallingford’s ‘downtown’.

The proposal consists of three residential buildings containing a mix of one bedroom apartments and two bedroom townhouses. Additionally, the  proposal adds roughly 100 additional parking spots to the existing 192 spaces by moving them underground to serve the school, library, residences, and the downtown as a whole on a shared basis.  The housing is designed as a series of three intimately scaled courtyard buildings, with a meandering public pathway connecting them. The courtyards each have a different character and design influenced by their position on the site, and different potential uses for different times of the day. The housing consists of ground related townhouses surrounding the courtyards, with two or three levels of apartments above. The townhouses are entered from the perimeter of the development through transitional stoops and gardens to enliven the pedestrian experience both within the courtyards and around the perimeter of the site.  As a whole, the proposal provides 37 two bedroom townhomes, 118 one bedroom apartments and 292 shared parking spaces on what is now a vast and often vacant asphalt surface parking lot.