This mixed use building is located on the principal public space of Alys Beach, on county road 30-A in Florida’s Panhandle. There are three floors of (four) two bedroom apartments, over retail. There is a treed parking court behind the building. Across the parking court are one and two story houses on a mid-block footpath. Any building on this site has to respond to the scales of both exposures.

The building is 125 feet long and seventy feet deep. It is separated from adjacent buildings by an easement and minimal setbacks, so most light has to come from the front and back walls. The plan is an ‘H’ shape, with a thinned connector between two fifty foot wide and fifty foot tall wings. This configuration increases daylight in a deep floor plate. The circulation core is in the rear of the buildings. Despite a very efficient ratio of net to gross square footage, the residential corridors, along the edge of a west courtyard on the parking court, have lots of light and fresh air.