The site is a long, narrow parcel that sat undeveloped for years despite being one block from North Main Street. The elevated Smithfield Avenue and a steep southern embankment isolated the site. Access is limited to a small entry on Matilda Street through an adjacent lot due to the street’s steepness and a tall retaining wall along its frontage. A second access point is located on Collyer Street. The site has over twenty feet of vertical change between the two streets.

A long slender building of seven rowhouses is positioned along the embankment edge, parallel to Smithfield Avenue and the sloped topography. Soil conditions here met the strength needed for a conventional foundation, and the grade is relatively flat. A more compact, taller apartment building with 11 units is located at the lower end of the site near Collyer Street, where poor soil required a monolithic raft foundation.

The rowhouse massing reads as both a singular building and a series of distinct homes. Lower walls stagger with individual covered stoops; above, a continuous angled wall unifies the facade, and the roofline rises and falls in rhythm with each unit.

Each rowhouse has a front entry and enclosed garage at grade. The garden level includes a mudroom, water closet, stair to the main level, and a rear terrace. Living, dining, and kitchen areas open to a deck overlooking Smithfield Avenue. The second floor has two bedrooms and a shared bath.

The apartment building echoes the rowhouses’ forms, steps with the topography, and adds a garden level with terraces and mixed one and two-bedroom units.