Strategies to design affordable housing with a strong sense of community.

Skyrocketing interest rates coupled with peak housing costs amplify the need for affordable living in the United States. Too often, affordable housing complexes are focused on the individual as opposed to engaging and creating community. It has been proven¹ time² and time³ again⁴ that a strong sense of community improves quality and desirability of living conditions.  It is time to shift design from a focus on the individual to one focused on collective communities. This is how we can create higher quality housing, still at an affordable rate. 

We took time to examine our own history of affordable housing work and evaluate the efforts we have made to support a strong sense of community. Spanning a 30 year timeline, we investigated resident demographics, amenity access, building scale, social interaction, and urban context to support livability and the housing of cohesive communities while remaining affordable.

Invest South/West:
access to amenity and opportunity

Chicago, Illinois

Under Construction

In 2020, we once again teamed up with Heartland Housing, in addition to our friends at Oak Park Regional Housing, Latent Design and Bauer Latoza Studio, to form the Austin United Alliance. This robust team was selected as the first winning team for Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative. Together, we have been developing a site in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. The project refurbishes the historic Laramie State Bank, and introduces over 70 units of affordable housing to the neighborhood. With Latent Design and Bauer Latoza Studio managing the transformation of the Bank, our team was in charge of design for the housing portion. Historically an underserved neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, we recognized the importance of choice by providing a wealth of amenities that serve both the residents and the community at large. Amenities are equally accessible to all residents and offer opportunities for connection. This is how we ease the lives of community members. 

A community room provides a place for residents and community members to gather, organize meetings, and hold events. This space was strategically located next to the courtyard, opening up to a larger community area that ultimately connects to the adjacent bank, cafe, and business incubator. The courtyard serves the Austin community as a whole by providing much needed green space and performance areas during the daytime. Swinging gates featuring local artwork open this courtyard to the public during daylight hours, and close to secure the space at night. Resident safety was a priority. A rooftop terrace complements this courtyard and offers additional green space exclusively to residents, creating a space to interact in nature and ensure safe child play. Connecting to this terrace, a fitness room and budget-friendly shared laundry room create a series of spaces that allow residents with limited free time to get their workout, laundry, and outdoor time in, all at once. This area is intentionally situated at the center of the apartment complex to bring residents together from all corners and participate in a variety of activities. By providing moments to meet and engage with neighbors, residents have a better opportunity to get to know one another and create a shared sense of ownership over their home, bringing the benefits of Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” concept to the inside of the building. 

Tree Lane Apartments:
considering unique demographics

Madison, WI

Placemaking Award, Mayor's Design Awards

In the case of the Tree Lane Family Supportive Apartments in Madison, WI, our team partnered with developers at Heartland Housing to design an affordable housing complex for 45 families previously experiencing homelessness. Focus group sessions with local YWCA residents revealed an important opportunity: the design needed to help families integrate into the local community and better connect with one another. Recognizing the importance of play, a communal playground was strategically fit into the challenging site boundaries, creating space for children to form friendships. Friendship is the cornerstone of community. For parent residents, we included resources such as a computer room, social services office, business center, and a library to support career development and help struggling families get back on their feet. 

These spaces were then organized around the building’s main stair, keeping construction costs low with its central location, and ensuring safety in numbers as residents move throughout the building. The stair includes visually kinetic fall protection and extended sight lines to increase the face-to face interaction of residents, further developing bonds and maintaining safety. Unit design placed specific emphasis on window access in an effort to prioritize residents’ mental wellbeing and maximize the northern climate’s minimal winter daylight. These design moves resulted in a unique sense of place and ownership for the residents, proving that engaging users with their home and each other allows for improved living conditions.

Colton Palms:
a neighborhood of housing elements

Colton, CA

Architecture Honor Award, AIA National

Upon entering an affordable senior housing design competition in Colton, California, we rethought the concept of senior living. The scope was transformed from a single building, as proposed, to a neighborhood of housing elements. Our winning submission created a town within a town; a finely scaled environment that considers seniors’ abilities and works to improve them through social interaction and exercise. Springing from a square grid layout, we divided the scope into twelve, three story apartments, with public buildings scattered throughout. This dispersion of elements maintained an easily accessible layout while introducing neighborhood qualities. Residents could choose to connect at different scales: with those on their floor, those in their building, and those in the complex as a whole.  

A library, meeting hall, craft pavilion, office, and chapel bring residents out of their units and into a shared space, building a sense of community and promoting physical activity. Iconic architectural forms deck each of these facilities, introducing visual excitement and making it easier for the residents to identify the amenities. This transformative move in residential planning maintained a tight budget and created a dynamic, idealistic neighborhood out of what would have otherwise been a bulky structure of individual units with few opportunities for interaction. 

Warren Apartments:
considering the context

Chicago, Illinois

LEED Silver

The Warren Apartments, west of downtown Chicago, transformed a trash-strewn vacant parcel into two distinct affordable housing buildings. Each of these buildings sensitively respond to the surrounding urban context in both scale and form. As we have learned in the case of Colton Palms, dividing a program into bite-sized elements avoids monolithic structures that create undesirable streetscapes. The Warren apartments are bite-sized and pedestrian-friendly. The taller of the two buildings stands at 7 stories so as not to shadow its neighbor, a renovated historic landmark building known as Harvest Commons. The primary grid structure, proportions, and geometries from Harvest Commons were then translated to the Warren Apartments, maintaining the visual identity of the neighborhood and seamlessly integrating into the block. This design move eases the building and its residents into the community by remaining sensitive to what preceded it. 

The shorter of the two buildings, a three story walk-up, serves as a visual transition from the larger structures to the adjacent bus stop. This careful consideration of scale improves conditions for those on the street level and respects daylight access to the neighboring community garden. Variation in the block’s facade then provides more character to the neighborhood and a sense of pride for the community. 

We are excited to research and implement more of these community-focused design decisions into future affordable housing work, making it easier for residents to form their own dynamic communities through our careful considerations in demographics, access to amenities, social interaction, and urban context.

Author:

¹ Fone, D., White, J., Farewell, D., Kelly, M., John, G., Lloyd, K., Williams, G., & Dunstan, F. (2014). Effect of neighborhood deprivation and social cohesion on mental health inequality: a multilevel population-based longitudinal study. Psychological medicine, 44(11), 2449–2460. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291713003255

² Gattino, S., Piccoli, N.D., Fassio, O.F., & Rollero, C. (2013). QUALITY OF LIFE AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY. A STUDY ON HEALTH AND PLACE OF RESIDENCE. Journal of Community Psychology, 41, 811-826.

³ Michalski, C. A., Diemert, L. M., Helliwell, J. F., Goel, V., & Rosella, L. C. (2020). Relationship between sense of community belonging and self-rated health across life stages. SSM - population health, 12, 100676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100676

⁴ Baker, D. A., & Palmer, R. J. (2006). Examining the Effects of Perceptions of Community and Recreation Participation on Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research, 75(3), 395–418. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27522540