Ideas from the Drawing Board

Three affordable housing developments are the recipients of the 2013 HUD Secretary’s Housing and Community Design Award, each recognized for excellence in residential housing design. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected Via Verde- The Green Way in New York City; Community Learning in Leominster, Massachusetts; and New Accessible Passive Solar Housing, Stoneham, Massachusetts as national affordable housing models. An article about one of these projects - Via Verde housing complex in New York City - was published in the Green Buildings Magazine, № 2, 2013. Here we bring to your attention another two projects implemented in the state of Massachusetts.

This award recognizes design that supports physical communities as they rebuild social structures and relationships that may have been weakened by outmigration, disinvestment, and the isolation of inner-city areas.

BY POOLING RESOURCES
Community Learning Center is sited near the center of the small, onceprosperous city of Leominster, the Community Learning Center operated for years out of a tiny apartment in a public housing development, getting at-risk kids on track to graduation and college.

The Leominster Housing Authority received a grant to cover half the cost of a new facility and made arrangements with the local vocational/technical high school to provide the labor to make up the difference. Plans were prepared by the high school drafting class. Realizing that licensed professionals were needed to ensure the success of the project, the architectural firm Abacus Architects + Planners was brought in to rethink the design and coordinate the efforts of the Housing Authority, the residents, the Learning Center staff, and the high school’s Center for Technical Education. The firm worked for three years with students, teachers, and development residents to modify the design, set up for construction, and build the project. The architects helped participants develop the building program, ensured that the project met the exacting standards of the funder.

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Materials provided by American Institute of Architects