The Lots
City Restrictions
Design Guidelines |
Design
Guidelines
Before any home
can go to the City for review and approval, it must pass muster
before the Oak Grove Design Review Board, which works to enforce
the Oak Grove Design Guidelines. Architect Miles Berger and
landscape architect Michael Fotheringham crafted two documents
constituting the Oak Grove Design Guidelines. Their goal is to
“preserve the beauty of Oak Grove’s natural environment and to
integrate the architecture and landscape with this unique
setting.”
Prototypes
The Oak Grove
Design Guidelines are the most comprehensive and most
restrictive ever used in Pleasanton. In fact, the landowner
questioned whether it was possible to design homes that
complied. So, an independent architect was given the Design
Guidelines and hired to design houses for particular lots that
complied with the guidelines.
The
resulting five prototypes were published in the Oak Grove
Residential Prototypes.
(Click
to download)
The objectives
outlined in the guidelines, including low, active roof profiles,
four-sided design, varied setbacks, articulated volumes, stepped
building profiles and concealed garage placements, are followed
in the prototypes. Each offers examples of different
architectural styles and yet are compatible with each other and
with the natural environment. Some of the site plans are created
around existing heritage trees that must be preserved. Each
design adapts to its own type of site condition, some steeply
sloped, some narrow, flat, deep, shallow or estate size
surrounded by open space. Each indicate some of the multitude of
ways that the architects can address the variety of home sites
and natural settings that have been preserved at Oak Grove.
The Oak Grove Design Guidelines are just a first step. Each and
every proposed home design must also meet the City’s conditions
on size, height, placement, setbacks, and visual impacts. Each
proposed home must be reviewed and approved by the City after
public review and comment.
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