Reinventing Live/Work Housing for Santa Fe’s Creative Community
Led by Creative Santa Fe and New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing, the Siler Yard: Arts+Creativity Center provides urgently needed live/work housing and an affordable community studio space for the city’s lower-income artistic workforce. The project aims to provide a space for creative entrepreneurs to find financial independence while building their careers.
Siler Yard features a 65-unit affordable housing development that includes eight residential buildings with four different configurations that maximize space and natural light. The design combines corrugated metal siding and sloped roofs with stucco and flat roofs, reflecting the neighborhood’s industrial aesthetic. Each home features high ceilings and work studios that look out to a central spine of greenery that connects a plaza, playgrounds, and a shared workspace building. Designed to be energy-efficient, rooftop solar arrays will generate all the energy necessary to sustain the development.
An innovative public engagement effort, funded through an NEA Our Town grant, brought together over 30 creative members of the community to consult on the project’s programming and design. The project is designed to serve the needs of diverse and economically disadvantaged groups in the community whose contributions have shaped Santa Fe into the artistic and cultural hub it is today. By providing a much-needed platform for the city’s creative workforce, the project spurs community development and the local arts economy, adding resiliency to Santa Fe’s position as an artistic and cultural destination.
Credits:
Local Architect: MASS Design Group; Landscape Architect: Surroundings Studio; Civil Engineer: Wilson & Company; General Contractor: Pavilion; Photography: Kate Russell.
