This high-density, mixed-use building will be fabricated almost entirely off-site using a hybrid, steel-frame/concrete composite panel system. Proprietary panels will be manufactured in Canada and assembled at a staging site near Sacramento into nearly complete, truckable building units. Underground environmental systems will be placed as entirely pre-fabricated utility vaults with primary plumbing and mechanical systems already integrated at the factory. Ground level retail/restaurant, mechanical/utility and parking areas will be swung into place as pre-fabricated hybrid panels similar to tilt-up construction. The upper level residential units will arrive as pre-assembled and pre-finished living units delivered as components similar to the arrival of two-piece, doublewide trailer units, and lifted into place by crane. The entire manufacturing and pre-fabrication process can be completed off-site within a 5-month, just-in-time delivery framework, overlapping with a total 3-month on-site construction period. The rationalized, componentized manufacturing, delivery and erection process provides tremendous cost-savings and reductions in urban disruption and site pollution. The building materials are high-recycled content concrete and steel, inert, healthy and free of off-gassing chemical products. Surfaces are hard and robust concrete and plaster—there are no vinyl or drywall products. The building is organized and detailed to provide maximum daylight and airflow to each unit, and all primary community spaces, stairways and aerial sidewalks are open air. All rooftops are designed for maximum photovoltaic energy production or for community and private garden spaces, and all roofs collect and filter rainwater for use as non-potable household water. Household gray-water will be filtered and recycled as garden irrigation. Black water and grade-level storm water will both be pre-filtered and partially treated prior to release into the respective city systems, in order to minimize the impact of increased density on existing city services. Parking is limited, while car share, bicycle parking, and adjacency to sheltered frontage on the Octavia mass transit systems all encourage positive urban life. At the same time, all street frontage accommodates through streets and typical urban parking to enhance existing traffic logic and maximize retail use at the street level.

Using the vehicle of a highly economical, radically rationalized construction process accompanied by sustainable, green-technology materials and systems, primary design emphasis is placed on high-quality urban street life. Integration of organic, indoor-outdoor living within a high-density residential community offers a variety of unit types to accommodate diverse families. The two city blocks are organized to optimize daylighting, ventilation and outdoor access to all living units, and to carve out a semi-protected, semi-secret, quiet-but-active, restaurant/retail alley stepping back to lower residential units and quiet roof-top gardens above. Most building faces are composed of generous balconies or sunrooms intended to enliven all street and community garden facades with active, populated and densely planted outdoor living areas. The configuration of the blocks steps down and adjusts to the neighboring historic buildings, and steps back at street level to activate Octavia Street with outdoor cafes and to gently draw pedestrian traffic from Octavia Street into the active restaurant alley. The building is conceived as a dense urban retail block, porous to light and air at the residential levels, and carved out at its alley core to provide an urban surprise of quiet outdoor restaurants and family gardens in the air. The building itself is detailed as a simple, rational frame armature bringing the life of shops, apartments and hanging gardens into the forefront as a primary image of the site.