Ashwood
Large Project (over 25,000 sf)
Ashwood establishes a new threshold to Nashville’s 12 South neighborhood through a mixed-use development of retail, restaurant, and office uses organized around a shared landscaped courtyard. Below-grade parking allows the ground plane to prioritize pedestrians, public gathering, and landscape, while a carefully calibrated material palette and stepped massing respond to the scale, character, and evolving architectural fabric of the neighborhood.
Project Statement
Located at a prominent gateway to Nashville’s 12 South neighborhood, Ashwood addresses a central challenge facing rapidly growing urban districts: how to introduce meaningful density while preserving the scale, character, and public life that define the community.
The design emerged from a rigorous study of the 12 South commercial corridor and an extended collaborative process involving the development team, architects, designers, neighborhood stakeholders, residents, and visitors. Rather than treating the project as a singular commercial object, the team conceived Ashwood as a collection of buildings and outdoor spaces that extend the pedestrian experience of the neighborhood into the site.
Retail, restaurant, and office uses are organized around a central landscaped courtyard designed to encourage gathering, exploration, and informal interaction. Parking is consolidated below grade, allowing the majority of the ground plane to support pedestrians, landscape, outdoor dining, and active storefronts rather than automobiles.
The project’s massing responds deliberately to its context. Buildings nearest the street maintain a smaller scale consistent with the existing corridor, while taller portions of the development are positioned deeper within the site to form a backdrop rather than dominate the public realm. Materials were selected for their familiarity, durability, and connection to long-standing regional building traditions while allowing the architecture to remain distinctly contemporary.
Ashwood’s most significant contribution may be the amount of privately developed land devoted to public-facing space. By exchanging potential leasable area for plazas, courtyards, and pedestrian connections, the development creates opportunities for social interaction beyond the sidewalk and outside the realm of the automobile.
As Nashville continues to grow, Ashwood offers a model for neighborhood-scaled density—one in which development reinforces public life, responds thoughtfully to context, and contributes to the identity of the community rather than simply occupying it.
Framework for Design Excellence Narrative
Design For Integration:
Ashwood’s architecture, landscape, circulation, structure, and development strategy were conceived as interdependent systems serving a common goal: accommodating substantial urban density while maintaining the human scale of 12 South.
The project distributes its program across multiple building volumes organized around a central landscaped courtyard rather than consolidating it into a single large mass. Buildings along the street are intentionally reduced in scale, while taller elements are positioned deeper within the site. This approach allows the project to participate in the established rhythm of the corridor while accommodating the density necessary to support a successful mixed-use development.
The integration of below-grade parking was equally fundamental. By relocating vehicles beneath the development, valuable ground-level area could instead become pedestrian circulation, landscape, outdoor dining, and public gathering space. The resulting public realm is not an applied amenity, but the organizing element of the overall design.
A highly collaborative relationship between the Design Architect and Architect of Record further supported this integrated approach. Detailed responsibility matrices, overlapping participation, and continuous interdisciplinary review maintained design continuity while drawing on the expertise of a broad consultant team.
\n Design for Equitable Communities
Community engagement shaped Ashwood from the beginning. Through the Specific Plan process and ongoing dialogue with neighborhood organizations and stakeholders, the development team worked to balance new density with the established character and pedestrian scale of the 12 South corridor.
One of the most consequential outcomes of that process was the decision to dedicate significant portions of the site to publicly accessible pedestrian space rather than maximize leasable area. Courtyards, plazas, landscape, and pedestrian connections extend the public realm beyond the sidewalk and create places where residents, workers, and visitors can gather and interact.
The project’s community investment also extends beyond its property lines. The development team contributed to neighborhood traffic-calming infrastructure and provided a significant Beautification Grant to support improvements within the broader district.
Together, these strategies recognize that the impact of a large development extends beyond its buildings. Ashwood seeks to create shared value by strengthening connections, expanding pedestrian space, and contributing directly to the quality of the surrounding neighborhood.
\n Design for Well Being
Ashwood places the pedestrian experience at the center of the development. A landscaped courtyard establishes a sequence of pathways, gathering spaces, planted areas, and moments of discovery that encourage visitors to slow down, explore, and engage with the environment and one another.
Locating parking below grade substantially reduces the presence of vehicles within the public realm. In its place, the project provides active storefronts, outdoor dining, landscape, and spaces for informal gathering. These environments support everyday social interaction while offering greater access to daylight, planting, fresh air, and outdoor space.
The project’s stepped massing further contributes to a more comfortable pedestrian scale. Rather than allowing the largest building volumes to define the street edge, taller elements recede into the site while lower buildings reinforce the scale of the existing neighborhood.
Through these strategies, Ashwood uses architecture and landscape to support physical comfort, social connection, and a more engaging everyday experience.
Design for Economy
Ashwood demonstrates that development density and neighborhood compatibility need not be competing objectives. The project consolidates retail, restaurant, and office uses on a valuable urban site while sharing infrastructure, parking, circulation, landscape, and public amenities across the development.
A key economic decision was the deliberate exchange of potential leasable area for pedestrian plazas, courtyards, and landscaped gathering spaces. While these areas do not maximize immediate rentable square footage, they create long-term value by strengthening the identity of the project, supporting its tenants, attracting visitors, and contributing to the vitality of the surrounding district.
The compact mixed-use program and below-grade parking strategy also allow the site to accommodate substantial density without dedicating large portions of valuable urban land to surface parking.
Ashwood therefore approaches project economics as more than initial cost or leasable area. Its value lies in balancing development efficiency with long-term civic, social, and economic benefit.
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Design for Energy and Resources
Reducing environmental impact and improving long-term building performance were important objectives throughout the design and construction of Ashwood. The project pursued LEED BD+C: Core and Shell certification through a coordinated approach to energy efficiency, material selection, construction waste reduction, transportation, and building systems.
Strategies included diverting construction waste from landfills, improving the efficiency of mechanical and building systems, and providing infrastructure that supports electric vehicles and bicycle transportation.
The project’s podium design also required the integration of structure, drainage, waterproofing, landscape, and accessibility across a complex stepped site. Split-slab drainage planes and high-density foam forming allowed the landscaped pedestrian realm above the parking structure to accommodate varying elevations while maintaining positive drainage and accessible routes.
These technical strategies demonstrate how environmental performance and public-realm design can reinforce one another. Rather than treating sustainability as a separate layer of the project, Ashwood integrates resource efficiency, mobility, infrastructure, and landscape into the fundamental organization of the development.
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LEED/Green Certifications
LEED certified
Price/sq. ft. if provided
+/- $240
