Matilda Overlook: New Housing for North Main Street – Architecture Critic Morgan

Matilda Overlook: New Housing for North Main Street – Architecture Critic Morgan

 

If one wants to know how handsome new housing can be built on Providence’s East Side without tearing down existing buildings, then take a look at the Matilda Overlook complex of townhouses and apartments soaring above Smithfield Avenue. The effort is led by developer Josh Chu and architect Jack Ryan. The two adjacent blocks containing seven townhouses and eleven apartments demonstrate how architecturally distinguished housing can be inserted into and enrich the existing urban fabric.

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The two-thirds of an acre that software engineer-turned-developer Chu purchased three years ago was essentially a garbage lot, where highway infill was dumped during construction of the Smithfield Avenue overpass. Also, the narrow trapezoidal plot drops 24 feet from Matilda Street to Collyer Street. The site alone would have thwarted your usual ubiquibox builder. Yet the imaginative Ryan transformed this ugly-duckling squinch of land into a harbinger of what the empty lots along North Main Street could become.

 

When Ryan tackles residential living the results are a win for the city. Most notable is his renovation of the original Miriam Hospital on Parade Street for Armory Revival. And just off North Main, the RISD-trained designer has been transforming the former St. Raymond’s convent and school on Eight and Ninth Streets into 52 apartments for East Side developer Ghassan Daou. Designed from the ground up, however, Matilda Overlook was erected on an unpromising and difficult location that required a particularly creative solution.

 

Matilda Overlook links a low-lying strip mall with the elevated ridge that forms the upper end of North Main Street. Fondly known as the Mystery Mall, it is home to Ocean State Job Lot and various not-so-upscale businesses. The mall’s fortunes are looking up, however, due to the construction of a pair of medical office buildings; the proximity to Miriam Hospital is a driver of neighborhood expansion. A retaining wall collapse forced the rebuilding of part of Collyer Street, allowing developers to create a western entry point for the apartments.

 

 

This is an ideal location for those wanting urban living with minimal fuss; it is close to an I-95 interchange, it is on the city’s R bus line, and it offers convenient spaces at reasonable rents. Each of the seven townhouses has 1,375 square feet of living space, a garage with storage, and an elevated deck, at $2600 per month. The apartment block has eleven one- and two-bedroom units, ranging from approximately 500 to 800 square feet, renting from $1,850 to $2,250. Because of the high-perched site, all of the units feel like tree houses, offering distant views; the downtown skyline is visible from the top-story flats.

 

 

Unlike the mediocre apartment blocks of the 195/Jewelry District, the student ghettos crowding and destroying Thayer and Wickenden Streets, Chu and Ryan have taken the high road and have given the city buildings that are visually intriguing, tasteful, and proud-making. The handsome slate-gray residential blocks sit elegantly among the trees, while the architect provided subtle design flourishes that pay strong visual dividends.

Ryan addressed why the townhouses look as they do. “The lower level is stepped back with each getting covered stoops, giving each unit its own articulation. The building is a long continuous plane that runs over the stepped unit entries below, with the rising and falling of the roof line coordinated with the rhythm of the rowhouses. I wanted the play between each unit having its own identity while also creating a building that reads as one long figure.”

 

 

The skin of the Matilda Overlook is Hardy Board, one of the most popular and economical siding materials. Yet, Ryan’s manipulation of the covering, along with the undulating roofline, gives the walls a whimsical plasticity. The modulation of light and shadow is one of the architect’s signatures. This was a frugal project, but Ryan shows that quality architecture is not the same as high construction costs. Good design is the key to excellence.

 

 

The best new housing on the East Side is not on College Hill or in Fox Point. Matilda Overlook is a model of what can be accomplished with limited budget, a difficult site, and the vision to set a new standard for development on North Main Street.