Serenity Village

Site & Housing

The Roger Williams Site

Site Context

A 39-acre site, historically home to the Roger Williams Homes public housing complex, razed as part of an earlier transformation strategy. The Housing Authority received Choice Neighborhood Planning funding in the past, but no full redevelopment was executed. Serenity Village proposes to complete what was started — 30 quadruplexes plus a commercial component, near Mobile's hospital district within reach of Mobile Infirmary Medical Center.

The site sits on intact road beds from the previous development, a redevelopment advantage that reduces horizontal construction cost versus a raw-land build.

Site Plan & Access

Multiple access points are planned for proper emergency egress and traffic flow. The optimal primary entrance runs through the adjacent State of Alabama property to the northwest, which already carries a traffic light — a location also well suited to the commercial component near the entrance.

Quadruplex Units

Low-density quadruplexes, 1 per acre. ADA-accessible with lift. Proposed unit size 750 SF with 10′ ceilings — low-density siting keeps the redevelopment closer to a neighborhood scale than a conventional public-housing block.

ADA Two-Bedroom Units

Mirrored-plan, two-bedroom, ADA, draft concept — 750 SF, giving the site plan a second building orientation without changing the unit footprint.

Resident Life

Food, Utilities, Security, and Wellbeing

Food System

Alabama is the fifth-poorest state in the nation. 17% of adults and 23% of children — one in four — face food insecurity: lack of regular access to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life. Large rain gardens for vegetables address that directly: they reduce storm-drainage infrastructure costs by 25% and produce abundant food, aiming for 30% of calories grown on site. The 4.7-acre community garden pairs food production with educational programming.

Utilities Included

For a 750 sq ft SIP home, energy-efficient construction cuts the monthly utility burden well below a conventional Alabama home of comparable size. All utilities — electricity, water, broadband — are included in rent, removing a common source of housing-cost volatility for residents.

Security & LoRaWAN

LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a low-power, long-range wireless protocol built for IoT applications, forming the emergency and security system backbone: extended range covering large areas with minimal infrastructure, low power consumption so devices run for years on small batteries, unlicensed bands with no monthly spectrum fees, and a single gateway supporting thousands of devices across the property.

AI Companion

Many people have never experienced what it's like to have a conversation with an AI system like ChatGPT, Claude, or similar technologies. For residents at Serenity Village who have never interacted with AI before, the design goal is natural conversation flow, personalized interaction that remembers preferences and important dates, a judgment-free environment for questions, and availability at any hour — including 3 a.m., when a resident might feel most isolated.

Wellbeing by Design

Three building-science factors residents feel every day, addressed directly in the SIP construction and site design:

• Air — right after a rain, the air carries negative ions; the site's landscaping and green infrastructure extend that effect, supported by negative-ionization systems in the smart-home package.
• Light — circadian LED lighting, tuned to support residents' natural sleep-wake cycle.
• Sound — acoustic design in the SIP building envelope reduces sound transmission between units and from outside.