Sauer Center
A mixed-use block on a working Richmond corridor, where the site constraints arrive before the design does.
Project record
Project
Sauer Center
Type
Office
Location
City of Richmond
What a project like this involves
An infill block in an established part of Richmond is the hardest kind of commercial site to plan, because almost nothing about it is negotiable. The street grid is already there. The utilities are already there, at whatever depth and capacity a previous generation left them. The neighbors are already there, and they will be at the hearing.
Work like this is decided by access and stormwater long before anyone argues about the building. Where can the entrances go without breaking the traffic pattern on a road that is already busy? How does a site with very little spare ground meet a modern stormwater requirement? What does the existing sewer actually have capacity for? Those three answers set the developable footprint, and everything else is drawn inside it.