Colorful Litehouse Canal Block is architect’s favorite
Alexandra Bohler has always loved Dayton.
“My college friends from other states can recite all of the products invented in Dayton,” says Bohler. “We have a rich history, but we also have a great future ahead of us.”
Before entering her senior year of high school, Bohler worked worked at Fifth Third Field during the Dayton Dragons’ opening season. RiverScape had just been completed and she also remembers touring The Cannery and Cooper Lofts soon after they opened. “They were fun, contemporary spaces,” she says. “When I left for college, Dayton was really getting exciting!”
When we invited Bohler to select one of her favorite local “architectural treasures,” she chose the Litehouse Canal Block in downtown Dayton. You can’t miss the colorful complex when you’re driving down Patterson Boulevard.
The eight colorful and ecofriendly townhomes have multiple outdoor seating areas, including balconies and rooftop patios with sweeping views of downtown. The homes were designed to be energy efficient, with solar-reflective roofing and flooring made from cork and plant resin. They have indoor garages and rainwatercollection systems.
“When I came back to Dayton and saw the Litehouse Canal Block, I was so excited,” Bohler recalls. “Here was a project at the nexus of my educational backgrounds — both city planning and architecture — in an exciting, contemporary form. The relationship of the front entrances to the sidewalks has texture, appeal, and is very pedestrian friendly, yet there is still a car parking area behind — we are still a car-oriented city, after all. The color, dimensionality and contemporary details represent a Day
ton of the future, not the past.”
About the architects
The townhouses were built in 2008 and designed by Rogero Buckman Architects (RBA) — a firm that has made major contributions to our downtown landscape, including the RiverScape Bike Hub, the Real Art building, The Cannery, Cooper Lofts, the Firefly Building and many residential buildings throughout the city.
“Unfortunately, the firm no longer exists, as I discovered when I tried to get a job there a few years ago,” says Bohler. “Luckily, Mary Rogero still lives in the area and teaches at Miami University, so I had the opportunity to talk to her about their design. She said the pops of color were inspired by many European cities, which are much less afraid to use color in urban environments. Interestingly, she and Barry Buckman were not only the architects, they were on the development team. Mary explained that in addition to having a passion for downtown, their workload was light at the time, so they figured, ‘Why not create work for ourselves AND contribute to reinvisioning the downtown landscape?’”
Part of a larger project
The townhouses were part of a larger project, the Litehouse Demonstration Homes, located throughout the country. Most of the others are single-family homes that feature energy efficiency and LID (Low-Impact Design) principles such as green roofs, rain gardens, pervious parking areas and rooftop collection systems.
Another notable feature is that they all utilize modular construction. “They were constructed in a few parts in an indoor facility, minimizing waste and damage, and then brought onto the site and put together,” explains Bohler. “In theory, if many were constructed, this would be a significant cost savings as well. Unibilt, based in Vandalia, manufactured the homes, which were a drastically different style from what they were used to creating. However, according to Ken Botts, another member of the development team, they were open to trying it out and saw the trend of younger people across the country moving into downtowns.”
Botts also said first-time home buyers and emptynesters were the primary groups of people interested in these homes, but because at the time empty-nesters were having a difficult time selling the homes they already owned, first-time home buyers became the primary demographic.
“In talking with both Mary and Ken, I was surprised to find out that one of the major hurdles they encountered in selling the homes was convincing the banks to give loans,” Bohler adds. “Since the townhouses’ initial costs were about 15 percent more than average because they were designed for long-term energy savings, it was hard for appraisers to find comparisons. A homeowner would see those savings over the course of many years, but that was not considered when issuing loans. There also weren’t many other townhouses downtown at the time — something hard to believe now!”
Concludes Bohler: “In more recent years, we’ve seen many more townhouses added to our downtown landscape, primarily thanks to Charles Simms’ developments. Hopefully we’ll see more sustainable living designs as our city regrows, and we can use the Litehouse Canal Block as an example.
Although the initial vision of the city block full of Litehouse townhomes did not come to fruition, I do think those built played an important part in spurring additional interest in downtown living, and it has certainly made a positive contribution to our urban landscape along Patterson.
“I can’t help but smile when I see those pops of color. I’m now looking forward to our downtown’s success spilling into the rest of the city, where hopefully we’ll have many homes for appraisers to choose from with green features and urban design principles in full force. Dayton’s past was great, but the future of Dayton is looking good, too.”
Alexandra Bohler is an architect living in Dayton who recently started her own firm, Hatch Architects, LLC. The Dayton native attended Stivers School for the Arts and graduated from Cornell University, majoring in urban and regional studies. She had a brief stint with Teach for America in Philadelphia, then received her master’s of architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago. She and her husband have two daughters and live in Grafton Hill.
Contact this reporter at 937225-2440 or email Meredith. Moss@coxinc.com.