PROJECT OVERVIEW | Art Farm LLC is an artist collaborative focused on arts education and supportive creative programs. Working with a team of experts including Progressive Development Group, Forage Design + Planning, and Cascadia Clusters, the Art Farm collaborative is proposing to develop an affordable, tiny home courtyard cluster and artist ecovillage. The project site is a 20,000 square foot parcel zoned RM1 that allows for increased density and flexibility in unit and site design. The site features an existing one-story, single-family residence, a studio/workshop, one tiny home, and a large two-story wooden barn (affectionately referred to as “Art Barn”).
This proposal includes adding up to nine residential units at the western half of an existing single-family residential property with zoned potential for up to ten units. The intent is to demonstrate creative approaches for affordable housing as well as a variety of innovative sustainable design features.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING | In collaboration with Cascadia Clusters as the project contractor, the site would include a mix of permanent and flexible housing types, ideally including several Tiny Homes on Wheels (THOWS). Each residential unit would feature off-grid utilities including solar power and battery storage. Further, by providing a mix of unit sizes and options for rentals of some permanent tiny homes or flexibility for visitors to bring their artistic tiny house with them, it allows variety of housing options for different user needs.
ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE | Environmental goals include net zero energy performance, onsite agriculture, a market stand, innovative stormwater management, rainwater capture and reuse through on-site cisterns, greywater filtration, and composting toilets. The project is targeting a “triple-bottom line” approach to sustainability, equity and economy including low income housing, on-site energy generation for carbon-neutrality, with innovative stormwater management, agriculture, and arts education.
COMMON FACILITIES | Common facilities would include a large central green and gathering space, community gardens, orchard, new common kitchen, added bathrooms and multiple showers to supplement facilities in the existing house. The western half of the property is open yard space that is centrally accessible to the house, barn and workshop and would make an excellent central landscaped area for residents in a courtyard cluster housing arrangement. Like the existing tiny home on the property, all units are envisioned to have composting toilets. Greywater from tiny home kitchens would be drained through professionally designed infiltration planters. Additionally, community gardens, orchard, as well as art and workshop space would serve as common resources for the residents. The large open front yard currently includes large raised bed planters, and a new covered neighborhood farm stand would be added with seating and shelves for produce to share with the local neighborhood.
REPLICABILITY | The project presents an opportunity for a potentially replicable model to quickly create low cost housing to serve artists and low-income residents on underutilized residential sites, while still preserving the potential for even greater density in the future. Further, it creates an innovative example of an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable community.
PROJECT TEAM
Art Farm Representative: Art Farm Board Member/Resident | Michael O’Neill, artbarnllc@gmail.com
Owner/Developer: Progressive Development Group | Paul Niedergang, paul@progresspdx.com
Designer: Forage Design + Planning | Heather Flint Chatto, foragedesigner@gmail.com
Contractor: Cascadia Clusters | Andy Olshin, andrew.olshin@comcast.net
FORAGE DESIGN + PLANNING 