Aloe Palm Canyon

Palm Springs is defined by its Modernist heritage, indelibly shaped by the visionary works of Neutra, Lautner, and Frey. Aloe Palm Canyon, a new 100% affordable senior housing development, is a testament to this important legacy while charting a new chapter for architecture’s role in the city and its future. A gateway greeting visitors arriving from the north, the project transforms a vacant lot to link the activity of downtown with Old Las Palmas, mending a rift in the urban fabric.

The project’s 71 units march across the site in a staccato rhythm, dissolving as they step west toward historic Camino Norte, blending new and old. Shaded courts, loggia, and arcades interweave landscape and built form, spaces for gathering, retreat, and reflection. A line of white steel spans overhead, a latticed trellis shading a wide paseo. Slender, twinned columns echo its rhythm of shifting light and shadow. A sheltering canopy soars above, its sharp silhouette etched against the sky. Clad in taut metal, the rooftop’s standing seams rake obliquely across their butterfly pitches, rising and falling like a flock on the distant horizon, a shimmering mirage in the desert sun.

“For Aloe Palm Canyon, Modernism is about much more than flat roofs or breezeblocks. The ideals of Modernism, rather than being frozen in amber, can be the foundation for buildings now and in the future. These principles, the fabric of Palm Springs, are not just about light and form: they are also about how architecture can shape social interaction and create a public good for Palm Springs’ most vulnerable residents. They are not solely about the past, rather, they have been built here today.”

K E N D A L L B A L C H A N,
T H E P A L M S P R I N G S P O S T

The ground floor hosts a constellation of public amenities, including a library, fitness center, computer lab, and demonstration kitchen. Twenty-five permanent supportive housing units are dedicated to seniors experiencing homelessness, with on-site supportive services delivered in partnership with Riverside University Health System and DAP Health. Thoughtfully composed stairs, corridors, and courtyards encourage interaction and foster connection. Floor-to-ceiling glazing suffuses each unit with natural light; private balconies open to expansive views of the Coachella Valley to the east and frame Mt. San Jacinto’s rugged figure to the west.

Sustainable design is reflected in every facet of the LEED Gold project, including a substantial 173 kWdc photovoltaic array integrated within the trellis, shading much of the site and producing over 260,000 kWh of solar power each year. Innovative construction methodologies, including offsite construction and precut framing, significantly reduced construction waste, shortened the project’s construction timeline, and enabled more precise assembly.

The project’s drought-tolerant landscape, also designed by 64North, blends intricate texture and effervescent hues in a tapestry of cacti, aloe, palo verde, palm, and agave. Terraced planting bands step up from the street and expressive whorls of gardens thread inward, a xeriscape which is both foil and frame to the project and its architecture. Built of stone and shadow, light and air, Aloe Palm Canyon is home in this arid landscape: whitewashed staggered brick facades dance in the summer sun, sculpted plaster walls encircle the blue sky overhead, sweeping soffits part to reveal the evening horizon, burnished in rose and rust. In the fading light, the building glows, luminous and still—a dialogue with the desert.

“The design developed by 64North honors the neighborhood’s Midcentury modern heritage with a striking, contemporary interpretation that transforms this stretch of North Palm Canyon Drive and the surrounding community.”

J E S S E S L A N S K Y, W H C H C
P R E S I D E N T

S E R V I C E S

Architecture, Interiors, Landscape & Lighting

T E A M