VIO is a mixed-use project within the Village Oaks master plan of the Hitachi General Development Plan, located in San Jose, California. The HighDEF project consists of 234 residential apartment units and approximately 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, distributed in two 4-story Type V buildings. Leasing center, recreation, and fitness facilities are featured in a separate 3-story building, adjacent to a pool courtyard. The project incorporates sustainability measures to achieve a LEED Silver rating. In accordance with the City’s vision of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, the architecture breaks down the perceived mass of the buildings by creating an overall rhythm to enhance the human scale, as activated by stoop entries and material articulation at the ground plane. Although the rhythm creates a certain regularity and order, the varied palettes of color in the architecture serve to create differentiation within the system, to essentially enhance the individual scale. Creative stacking solutions were required to enhance the semblance of more verticality in reference the traditional rowhouse typology as requested by the city.