On Olive is composed of two apartment blocks located on the Olive West Corridor in the Grand Center area of St. Louis. The project is part of a larger housing development created by philanthropist and arts patron Emily Rauh Pulitzer. Poised to remake a virtually empty block, the project will include two buildings with 35 apartments designed by MMA, and 27 single-family homes designed by a set of internationally-recognized architects. Development of the Olive West Masterplan has been directed and developed by Tatiana Bilbao Estudio.

The apartment buildings sit on a shared podium and parking, interlocking with one another, creating a series of intimate courtyards and a unified composition. The public corridors and units fold back and forth around the shared outdoor spaces, affording a variety of different perspectives. This design results in a series of unique, loft-like one and two-bedroom apartments with ceiling heights in some units of more than 12’ and large windows that ensure comfortable, light-filled living spaces.

Celebrating both the past and future of the Olive West Corridor, the project extends the scale and material character of the existing historic buildings and proposed Olive West Masterplan, while also forging a new, distinct identity as an anchor for the site. The design draws on surrounding site lines and materials to create a dynamic form that mediates between the quiet, suburban scale of the masterplan and the bustling urban corridor of Vandeventer Avenue, acting as a model for renewed density in the Grand Center neighborhood.