Civic Community

Light and Nimble: Clever Prefab Wood-Frame Development Brings Livability to Nashville’s Germantown

Large-scale multifamily rental projects can often look bland and lack character. But in the current housing crisis, does that matter? For Mike Sullivan, principal designer at Memphis-based LRK, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” In Nashville, his firm is showing how clever design thinking, combined with tried-and-tested, nimble light-frame wood construction, produced a vibrant, walkable 450-unit housing development—making it a community where people really want to live.

Not Just Another Conventional
Multifamily Development

The community’s 4.5-acre site in Nashville’s historic Germantown neighborhood, just off the banks of the Cumberland River, could have accommodated a multifamily project that, like so many, simply maxed out its floor area ratio (FAR). “But our client requested something different for this project,” Sullivan says. “Not just another conventional multifamily development but, instead, a thriving mixed-use hub that seamlessly incorporates residences, retail, coworking facilities, restaurants, and amenities.”

That client was Columbus, Ohio-based developer Lifestyle Communities (LC). LC wanted to create a dynamic community that taps into what it knows home renters are looking for: A lively, walkable mixed-use development with all the conveniences of modern construction, but with a streetscape that nods to historic neighborhoods and creates an unmistakably urban feel. The community’s achievement of that goal earned it recognition as the National Association of Home Builders “Community of the Year” in its 2024 Best in American Living Awards.

“Like everywhere in Nashville, Germantown was seeing rapid growth, and we saw three traditional ‘multifamily wraps’ under construction within blocks of us,” Sullivan says. The wrap-around configuration, sometimes referred to as the “Texas Donut,” typically consists of a central above-ground concrete parking structure surrounded or “wrapped” by 4 to 7 stories of housing. It’s popular with developers for its affordability and efficient land use. But its sometimes banal, uniform design can result in disconnected spaces, limited connectivity to the outdoors, and a neglect of the architectural character and culture of the surrounding area.

“So with LC Germantown, we wanted to take a more novel approach, dividing the development into different buildings, scales, and configurations, giving it an animated, civic and heritage-like presence,” Sullivan says.

LC Germantown

Photo Credit: Sara Bill

Achieving Character with Prefab
Light-Frame Construction

To achieve this, LRK proposed a range of light-frame buildings that took advantage of offsite prefabricated construction to animate the streetscape with a variety of building volumes and scales.

“The idea of an internal street became an important focal point, creating an interesting central connective spine to unite the site,” says Damon Brider, an LRK architect and designer who also worked on the project. “To unify the buildings, each one was designed to represent a historical use loosely related to the former nearby railway.” Nicknamed the factory, the company office, the beam house, and the stack house, the buildings worked together to create a cohesive and engaging architectural narrative—one informed by history without devolving into theme park kitsch.

The result is a unique assortment of four four- to six-story buildings featuring one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhomes. Amenities include rooftop decks with views of downtown Nashville, five courtyards, a restaurant/bar and ground-level food, fitness, and retail spaces. “In essence, we’re trying to create a very walkable, human-scaled community that is entirely brand new, but feels like it’s always been there,” Brider says.

Repetition and prefabrication is where developers can realize the speed and cost-saving benefits of light-frame construction. Light-frame is LRK’s go-to construction system for this type of project, Brider says, and LC Germantown makes heavy use of panelized light-frame construction fabricated off-site and assembled on-site using a just-in-time method.

LC Germantown

Photo Credit: Nick McGinn

All four buildings are relatively straightforward and use Type V construction with the exception of the five-story beam house, which is Type III-A Construction.

“There’s a lot of repetition in our design, as you can see in the window formats,” Sullivan says. “And the balconies are additive rather than cutting into the building, which simplifies the panelized system, since it’s all in one plane without much undulation.” The simple shape of the buildings complements this approach, but still includes variations at the end caps or where the walls bump out.

“We likely saved months with this simplified, prefab light-frame method,” Sullivan says. “Everything happens quickly when all the materials are right there ready to go.”

But it’s this repetition and prefabrication that, without a thoughtful approach, can also make these projects overwhelmingly bland, Sullivan points out. “To combat this we really focused on variation in façades, proportions, and materiality—including historical tiebacks, like the brick detailing, which provide a historical thread.”

The design team also broke down the visual mass of the buildings by incorporating horizontal and vertical breaks to avoid monotonous, unvaried walls. “Changes in color palettes and stepping in the façades also create depth and dimension—and give it the character we associate with more established neighborhoods,” he adds.

LRK’s focus on façade and material variation is, in fact, backed up by urban design research. In a study that measured people’s responses to various city environments, including physiological metrics captured by wearable sensing devices, participants were strongly affected by building façades. According to the study, if building façades were complex and interesting, they affected people in a positive way—higher physiological arousal and self-reported mood; and if façades were simple and monotonous, they affected people more negatively—lower physiological arousal and self-reported mood.

LC Germantown

Photo Credit: Nick McGinn

Façades, Streetscape, and Urban
Design Boost Appeal and Livability

Façades, streetscapes, and a project’s amenities are becoming increasingly vital as the size of multifamily units are being progressively scaled down in an effort to cut costs and boost density. LC Germantown units start at less than 500 square feet, along with a selection of townhomes that range from 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. Nonetheless, despite the smaller sizes, the developer has been successful in attracting tenants.

“The biggest selling point of LC Germantown is it’s not just a basic apartment complex, but a community with character,” Sullivan says. “For example, the unit finishes and interior corridor designs in the company building are entirely different from those in the factory building. One has a loft-like interior, while the other has a more tailored look. These smaller boutique buildings allow people to choose the unit type and finish palette that best fits their lifestyle and personality.”

The design team also believes LC Germantown’s success is thanks, in part, to the thought put into the project’s thriving streetscape—which is drawing in more than just tenants. Unlike many traditional closed-gate multifamily development amenities, LC Germantown’s restaurant, bar, gym, and wellness and coworking venues are open to all.

“One of the biggest amenities for LC Germantown that is not listed on the official amenity list is the internal streetscape and outdoor public space,” Brider says. “As multifamily units inevitably get smaller, we need to provide spaces for tenants to gather, socialize, and recreate, and this street serves that purpose. It acts as a civic corridor, with all the other amenities connecting to it. People can spill out onto the street and connect with neighbors, and it functions like an outdoor living room for the community.”