Cully Green

...and became fond of a mature fir grove in the backyard. A couple years later, right before our 2nd child’s due date, our landlord announced he was ready to show the house. My wife and I looked at each other, wide-eyed, and found a way to purchase it. We were inspired to create a new community that preserved the fir trees where our family enjoyed campfires and our first child chased waddling ducks. (Plus, we knew those firs would be goners if another developer bought the property.) Soon, we moved across the street and members of a bluegrass band moved in, making beautiful music in the firs; they named it “Shady Grove.” Fast-forward 7 years, and a new group of children are starting to explore beneath the fir branches.

Before lifting a design pencil, we took the important step of surveying the property to find the location of every tree and structure. We try to balance the preservation of existing features with adding new community-oriented homes. We kept the most solid of the 3 existing homes, deconstructed the others, and milled up many of the trees we couldn’t save (an apple tree became the common house windowsills). With tenacity, we successfully petitioned the City to let us meander new sidewalks around mature trees along street frontages.

The site has an unusual shape, with 1 acre fronting on NE Going St., about a half acre on NE 47th Ave., and only 40 feet connecting them. We located key common amenities in the middle, accessible to both ‘wings’ of the community: a common house, garden area, sauna, and picnic pavilion. The townhomes are clustered into 2-3 unit buildings to allow for larger contiguous outdoor areas. Some are placed at angles, which creates changing sightlines while walking the path that threads through the heart of the community.

Located in a gentrifying neighborhood, it was essential to make some homes permanently affordable. We teamed up with the City and Proud Ground to drop the price of three homes by $200K for first time homebuyers. Each subsequent sale will be similarly affordable, ensuring that this community retains income diversity, even if the value of market-rate homes climbs dramatically.

Orange Splot makes it easy for residents to reduce their carbon footprints. The biggest factors in a home’s environmental impact depend on its size, whether it shares walls with other homes, and transportation of residents, so we focus on building small, attached homes in existing neighborhoods. On this project we went 100% electric, installed PV, and provide charging stations (for cars and bikes), which allows residents to meet most of their energy needs on-site. To stretch that electricity further, we provide super efficient heat pump water heaters, heat recovery ventilators, lots of insulation, and minimize air leakage. Landscaped areas are irrigated by a well (with the pump running off the common house’s PV array). We received a site-level grey water permit from DEQ, so washing machines are pre-plumbed to irrigate trees & shrubs in the summer.

With every Orange Splot project, our goal is to support community among residents. Beyond the obvious social benefits, this makes it easier for people to share stuff, e.g. garden tools, kid gear, cooking ingredients, canoes, chickens, play equipment… that might otherwise be purchased individually. Nine months before move-in, residents started gathering to get to know each other, practice meeting facilitation, form planning committees, and more!

Lastly, we want Cully Green to feel like a special place from day 1, while also leaving plenty of opportunities for residents to contribute & customize after move-in. We commissioned custom metal artwork for the common house and prominent gable ends, while homebuyers picked exterior colors and provided input on which trees to plant. Whether it’s front gardens, a kid fort, benches, a mural, or any number of other projects, we’ve left plenty of opportunities for residents to add their personal stamp, making Cully Green their own – which it soon will be!

...early November move-ins. Some of its sustainable elements are quite visible: roofs blanketed with over four hundred Hyundai His-RG-Series-60 photovoltaic panels (118kW), several thousand square feet of shared and individual gardens, a preserved tree grove and magnificent white oak, a bike storage building with 50+ bike capacity, electric charging stations for every parking spot, and ecoroofs on the recycling/trash enclosure and sauna. At least four homes will be net zero, and 6 buyers are participating in Energy Trust of Oregon’s “Solar Within Reach” program.

Other amenities are practically invisible from the outside, but still critically important - like the 200’+ well bringing irrigation water up from the Columbia aquifer, plumbing in each home for grey-water systems, induction ranges, heat pump water heaters, mini-split heat pumps, heat recovery ventilators, Energy Star appliances, LED lighting, insulation well beyond code, and the use of low-carbon concrete in foundations and slabs.