Block 27 is a small, four-unit rental apartment building in the Newton Booth district on Sacramento’s east side. The compact structure sits on an empty infill lot at the boundary between an area of distribution centers, warehouses, and light-industrial buildings on one side, and a dense residential neighborhood with treelined streets on the other. In response to these two competing urban typologies, the project seeks to mediate between the large-scale, unadorned monoliths to the north and the fine-grained fabric of small bungalows and four-square homes lining 27^th Street to the south.

The simple, three-story massing gives Block 27 a robust street presence that echoes the geometric pragmatism of its bulky commercial neighbors. Unlike them, however, the building is not an obstinate, hermetic box; instead, the subtle erosion of its cubic form and the cadenced articulation of its envelope temper the building’s volumetric rigor. Stacked floor-to-ceiling wall panels and windows faithfully delineate the building’s entire perimeter, but their irregularity, tonal variegation and random distribution, along with a large void carved out of the volume’s top floor, intentionally subvert the building’s formal rigor for a more nuanced reading – a counterpoint to the visual impermeability and stubborn self-containment of the nearby warehouses, allowing Block 27 to transition comfortably to the more delicate scale of its residential neighbors.

Because of its convenient location next to Sacramento’s major light rail corridor connecting Newton Booth to downtown in a short commute, the project does not offer enclosed parking for cars, instead providing shared storage space for bicycles and scooters inside the wood-clad base volume facing the street. The wood volume articulates the building entry, its oblique side wall leading to the deeply recessed front door and into the vestibule. The wood siding extends into the staircase that leads up to the communal roof terrace. The terrace serves as trellised outdoor room shared by all renters, with ample shade and expansive views of a neighborhood in transition.

On the exterior, a series of vertical metal channels and corresponding linear lighting strips complement the overall façade composition and add to its rhythmic complexity, their thin yellow lines a subtle accent to the monochromatic skin of the building.