Located along the El Cajon Blvd corridor, this mixed use and micro-unit housing project reflects the car-centric and industrial history of the boulevard. Prior to the creation of the 8 freeway, El Cajon Boulevard was the principal automobile route from San Diego to El Cajon and Imperial Valley. The boulevard is slowly working towards becoming a more pedestrian friendly area, therefore the design challenge was to merge the vibrant car-centric history and of the area with the emerging residential character.
The project contains three separate commercial spaces with a mixture of units 400 sf – 800 sf. Each unit takes advantage of cross ventilation and provides an indoor/outdoor living experience to maximize the overall unit footprint. The warm tones of wood still echo a residential palette juxtaposed against the perforated metal railings and steel commercial canopies that represent the car-centric and industrial look of El Cajon Blvd. Along the boulevard, a large format mural will light up at night to showcase local artist’s work. In addition to the mural, the light wells that sit between each volume will be painted with bright colors to reflect light and color into the nearby units.
