PAVILION & WORK AREA – Spring 1998
Site
Highland Gardens Apartments
4575 Klahanie Drive SE
Issaquah, WA
Description
Highland Gardens, located within the master planned community of Klahanie near Issaquah, provides 50 very low-income households, with permanent housing in a stable, supportive, multicultural community setting. Having grown directly from a unique community participatory design process within the Lao Hill Tribe communities of Hmong, Mien and Kmhmu Southeast Asian refugees, the design by Pyatok Architects, Inc. emphasizes comfortable living for large and extended families, and site layout and amenities that support and encourage mutual helping relationships. Townhouse units are arranged around shared courtyards, a community building includes an office, laundry facilities, a community kitchen and large meeting/activity room which opens onto a trellised patio/barbecue area, a toddler lot and half basketball court are included in anticipation of the many children living on site. A community garden provides a very important amenity for those immigrants and refugees from agrarian backgrounds while also offering opportunities for sharing and community building within the project.
The HSW Studio team designed and built a gazebo, decks, benches, work areas and storage facilities in the community garden. We also laid out the garden plots and did some site landscaping. All structures respond to the Craftsman style detailing of the other structures on the site and have become a much-loved amenity in this award-winning housing project.
