Red Oak Flats and Towns

EOA Architects

Part of the Cayce Master Plan, a city block was reimagined & reconnected to the East Nashville neighborhood with the following goals: 1) deconcentrate poverty through a fully integrated and economically self-sustaining mixed-income community; 2) provide a 1-for-1 replacement of the subsidized housing to be demolished; 3) honor a commitment to keep existing residents in the community and minimize disruption while creating the new housing; 4) work around existing 100+ year old trees. The Red Oak Flats & Towns also provide a transition in scale to the directly adjacent single-family housing while also "stitching" back the historic street grid. Red Oak Flats Building consists of a heavy mix of unit types ranging from 730 square foot 1-bedrooms to 2,110 square foot 5-bedroom units. At street level, entry stoops provide a more direct link to the street while balconies above provide views of the neighborhood. Every residential unit is designed at the same level of finish to be indistinguishable and to truly intermix income levels throughout the building.
Named after the eight 100-year old oak trees which were saved, the “Red Oak” site at Cayce place in East Nashville is a key block in the 63-acre 2015 Cayce Master Plan that knits together the adjacent single family neighborhood into the new mixed income community.
The Master Plan proposes a re-establishment of original street grids through, sewing the historically isolated neighborhood back into an interconnected modern mixed income neighborhood. The woven nature of the design concept reflects the history of the urban fabric that has continually been erased, remade and re-sewn throughout time – starting with the first grids on the East Nashville farmland that were transformed by fires, tornadoes, and then finally in 1930, the urban renewal movement. The colorful patterning of the façade concentrates color and scale with a lively quilted pattern which densifies at building entries to engage the community. Existing residents “voted” on the final color palates. Simple massing moves and the play of color bring life to straight facades and affordable material selections at the larger Flats building. At the towns, the design moves follow the scale of the two, three and four story stacked flats that navigate the hilly site as they are broken down with a push-pull theme bordered with white shifting planes.