Design Process

We put our primary emphasis on the people who make up our community. And, we regularly quip that our lives would be much simpler if we lived together! So, even though it is our secondary focus, the physical space that will house us is important too. We’ve put countless hours into programming and designing to make Daybreak a place we love to call home. In general, the Development Team makes the design decisions or determines how to bring design decisions to the rest of the community. Our primary development goal is to execute our community vision and represent our values where appropriate in our physical space. We are striving to create a physical environment that enhances our experience of community. We wish to live in a place that values multigenerational living, namely, being kid and aging-in-place friendly. We wish to incorporate sustainable materials and systems to the extent our budget allows. We are working to integrate with and welcome our neighbors to our community through our design. We also place a high value upon and are working to find a balance between: Timely completion (as soon as possible) Maintainability, durability, quality and functionality Reasonably priced units One of our guiding principles is quality over image. We are designing for high quality infrastructure and systems with insulation, moisture protection, radiant floors, and other features. The individual units are designed to be highly standardized and simple to reduce cost and provide for easy customization later. We submitted  our design for permits in June 2007. Our anticipated construction start is March 2008.

Site and Design

The design drawings you see below are based on the Permit Document set and are still subject to change. And they should give you a strong feel for what our community will look like. Countless features and details are still to come.

Daybreak will be a dense, urban community in the Overlook neighborhood of North Portland. Our future home is a two-thirds-acre site on North Killingsworth Avenue within three miles of downtown, on a bus line with frequent service and a short walk from the Interstate MAX light rail line.

The buildings will be two, three and four stories, all connected with exterior walkways. An elevator located at the common house will service each level. All units are being designed for varying levels of adaptability.

The common house will comprise roughly 7,000 square feet on the main floor and the basement and will be situated in the southeast corner of the property to be more visible and accessible to our neighbors. See the plan above for all the amenities that will be in our common house where we’ll laugh, play, eat, and relax together!

Come to the Entry to pick up your mail and catch the latest news. We’ll share common meals, have parties, dance and gather in large groups in the Great Room. The Café offers an informal and central space to hang out when you’re working from home or after work for a drink before dinner. With beverages nearby this provides a great place to be part of the happenings without being in the middle of it.  Our large Kitchen and dishwashing area will be home to great cooking  at least five days a week. The Living Room is a casual, relaxing place to socialize, to curl up by the re, or snuggle into the window seat to read a good book. In the Kids Room, little ones can run around, play and make noise. Good acoustic walls with windows to see in provide safety and a sense of peace in the rest of the common house. Coined the “noisyroom”, thie Family Room is where you can come to make music, watch a movie, or other more boisterous activities. Go to the Spiritual Space to meditate, have bible study, do yoga, or anything you want that is a spiritual practice for you. Two guest rooms with shared bathroom provide a nice private place for your guests to stay when they come visit - and it’s away from your home for a little more privacy.

Roll your bike down the ramp from the sidewalk and into every bicyclist’s dream. A home Bicycle Shop to work on your bike and secure interior bicycle storage for over 80  bikes! Bring your tools to the community Workshop. Build furniture or work on whatever project you may have.  If you choose to use the community Laundry Room, you can ride down the elevator and drop your laundry into a washer or into the queue. The basement also provides extra Personal Storage away from the units.

We will have 30 units. Above are some of our typical layouts. One-, two-, and three-bedroom ats are all very similar in conguration. Enter from the community walkway into a small entry at the kitchen. To one side is an area for coats and shoes, and to the other is the kitchen where you can stand at the sink and look into the community. Just past the coat area is the Flex Closet. This closet can be used for a variety of purposes depending on your needs. It is equipped with laundry hookups if you prefer private laundry over the common laundry. The remainder of the space is an open Great Room. Congure your furniture however you like to delineate your dining and living room, and even an ofce, if you like.  Bedrooms are just off to the side, tucked away a bit in a vestibule area to provide privacy when you have visitors. Each bedroom has a large closet.

The two-bedroom townhouse varies from the standard flat layout to make room for the stairs. Tucked under the stairs are a small powder room and a modied Flex Closet. The kitchen is congured slightly differently and includes an island to make the best use of space.  These units offer bedrooms upstairs for a little more privacy.

We also will enjoy a reasonable amount of open space for our urban setting. A huge, 50-year-old maple is at the center of our property. We will have open green areas, gardens, a roof terrace, small gathering areas, play areas, a large outdoor terrace off the common house and other outdoor amenities.

Sustainable functions are integrated into the overall design and include:

• Deconstruction (not demolition) of existing buildings onsite
• Recycling and reuse of materials from existing buildings (possibly in our project)
• Highly insulated walls and floors both on the exterior to provide a tight envelope and between units as sound barriers
• Energy-efficient windows
• Flat roofs designed for future use of PV panels
• Advance framing to reduce material waste
• On-site storm water management
• Good solar orientation for nearly all units
• Passive-solar design
• Rain screen methods to prevent mold and mildew

We also are planning a rainwater management system; high-efficiency radiant floor heating; and living walls of climbing plants on our west-facing walls to cool and protect buildings from the harsh western sun. The living walls, when implemented, will also give a nice break to the urban street-view. (The picture to the side is a conceptualization of a living wall on a stair structure)

Team of Professionals

Our community is excited to be partnered with a wonderful team of professionals to help turn our dream into reality. Thanks to Jim Lutz for all his experience and guidance during our very aggressive site search. Thanks also to Chuck Durrett of the Cohousing Company for helping us create our Site Program in August. And thanks to Bonnie Anderson and Shorebank Pacific for partnering with us in our property purchase.

We’ve teamed up with Grace Kim and Mike Mariano of Schemata Workshop to head our architectural design team. They are teamed with Marcy McInelly of Urbsworks Urban Design; Natasha Connolly and Peter Alspach of ARUP MEP Sustainable Concepts; Liz Fekete of Swenson Say Faget Structural Engineering; Maria Cahill of MGH Associates Civil Engineering; and Pat Lando and Melissa Medeiros of Lando and Associates Landscape Architects.

We’re thrilled that Carrington Barrs and Gabe Genauer of Barrs & Genauer Construction supported us during our site search and are already working with the design team.

We appreciate the enthusiasm, help and support of our other professionals: Eli Spevak (Orange Splot), our cohousing consultant; Tim Miller, our tax professional; Christopher Kane, our LLC legal counsel; and Roger Alfred, our HOA legal counsel.