Pettaway Pocket Neighborhood - UACDC

Project: Pettaway Pocket Neighborhood

Designer: UACDC (University of Arkansas Community Design Center) and students

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas

The nine-unit Pettaway Pocket Neighborhood galvanizes urbanization within low density development. A pocket neighborhood is an identifiable cluster of houses around shared outdoor commons and infrastructure─ideal for leveraging quality within an affordable housing setting. The pocket neighborhood capitalizes on smaller home footprints with shared amenities and services like a community lawn, playground, and stormwater management infrastructure…

Reinvestments in the Pettaway neighborhood have yet to provide a full range of house types and affordability. The pocket neighborhood offers niche market housing for alternative urban lifestyles, restocking affordable housing into the neighborhood.

A pocket neighborhood is an identifiable cluster of houses around shared outdoor commons and infrastructure─ideal for leveraging quality within an affordable housing setting.

A Low Impact Development (LID) stormwater treatment landscape eliminates use of underground pipes and catch basins, creating a 50% savings in infrastructure costs while solving for chronic flooding problems.

The pocket neighborhood capitalizes on smaller home footprints with shared amenities and services like a community lawn, playground, and stormwater management infrastructure.

Rock Street is transformed into a pedestrian-friendly environment with low impact facilities that mitigate stormwater runoff and provide traffic calming.

Pocket neighborhoods focus on the interface between pedestrians and the automobile. Creation of shared space without traffic signals and boundaries compels the motorist to slow down and behave socially.

Shared amenities increase home values within the pocket neighborhood, since a common is an ideal way to improve community image and foster neighborhood stewardship.

Shared space is the key layering element to a pocket neighborhood. It is neither private, like the home or yard, nor public, like a street or park. Porches and other frontage elements provide the “handshake” between the private and public realms.

This conclude our coverage on the “Planning” portion of the UACDC’s Pettaway Pocket Neighborhood project, stay tuned later this week for coverage on the portion of the work done by the Fay Jones School of Architecture students, House design!