This astounding 89 home community on the Roaring Forks River near Aspen, Colorado, developed by Bonsai Communities, strives to create the new global standard for sustainability, healthy and energy efficiency throughout every aspect of a community. TCI Lane Ranch will be an environment that is both physically and mentally healthy, allowing residents and visitors to thrive in their passions. TCI Lane Ranch will incorporate deep green standards throughout and adhere to strict guidelines for each neighborhood’s energy efficient and healthy living model. TCI Lane Ranch has been carefully designed to be harmonious with its surrounding natural beauty with its own internal amenities with a network of nature trails, cascading ponds, streams, wetlands, river access, community gardens, accessibility to mass transit and a pedestrian bridge across the Roaring Fork river, connecting to the Rio Grande bike path.

When first approached by Bonsai Communities, we noted that TCI Lane Ranch, an exurban site intended for a loosely defined buyer profile rather than any specific person, had grand aspirations regarding lifestyle and natural resources, but no singular esthetic vision or site features that could be leveraged into strong architectural concepts. Reposing comfortably between two tall ridges and alongside a fast-moving, but modest, river, the land does not offer sweeping views, great redwoods, daunting cliffs, or crashing ocean waves to both mold and challenge heroic architectural forms. Rather, it is very simply a beautiful piece of rural land under a bright Colorado sky, punctuated with modest Cottonwood trees and near a frothing (perhaps not “roaring”) river that one hears and smells before seeing through the dense river foliage. The key memories left after each visit to the site were those of Earth, Sky, Trees and Water.

But, poetic impressions alone do not provide the specificity and gravitas to drive the architectural design process, particularly when the project is to create budget-driven spec houses aimed to please a “demographic” rather than a specific person or family. The client’s design program called for a range of house types that would appeal to a broad range of buyers from young families seeking their first home, to affluent late-career families that might be moving down into a smaller home in the valley close to all of its amenities. This requirement reflected both a desire for diversity as well as a practical strategy to mitigate risk by appealing to a broad cross section of the community.

Additionally, there was a strong desire by the client and architect to avoid cookie-cutter design + mature understanding that there is no one way to achieve sustainable, energy-efficient homes and no singular esthetic that should represent them

The desire to appeal to diverse types of home buyers and the desire for architectural diversity and a variety of energy strategies led us to use the employ the chief natural qualities of the site as “themes”