Design Insights for Better Communities

The prettiest thing we do for an affordable project happens on paper, months before anyone picks a tile.

Every finish looks great on move-in day. The real test comes at year four, after a few hundred move-ins, a few thousand strollers and one

Walk into a building and you know in about three seconds whether it's a home or a facility. Nobody has to tell you.

The rendering sells the rooftop. The building gets loved because of the community kitchen, the homework table and a mail room that doesn't feel like

Nobody frames a drawing set and hangs it in the lobby. But on an affordable project, a clean, accurate set might be the most valuable

Great market-rate instincts can quietly cost you in affordable housing. Here are the seven we see most, and how to dodge every one.

Plenty of firms can make a lobby look pretty. Far fewer know how to make it look pretty, hold up for decades and stay under

Every affordable project hits the value engineering meeting. The trick is walking out with a lower number and a building that still looks like the

Same tax credit program, very different residents. A building full of kids and a building full of grandparents need different things from their interiors.

Accessible design done well doesn't look like a hospital. It looks like a home that simply works for everyone who lives there.