One/Two Family Custom Housing

The One and Two Family Custom Residences award recognizes outstanding designs for custom and remodeled homes for specific client(s).

R-House, Syracuse, NY
Della Valle Bernheimer and Architecture Research Office

Photo © Richard Barnes

This prototype residence was designed as part of an initiative to revitalize the Syracuse neighborhood of the Near Westside.  R-House presents an affordable, innovative paradigm for minimal to net-zero energy consumption embodied in architecture that is both sustainable and engaging.  The house was designed to meet the German Passivhaus ultra-low energy standard, utilizing an extremely well insulated exterior, an efficient recirculating heating and ventilation system, and high performance windows that optimize solar gain.  R-House is durable, adaptable and affordable due to its simplicity of form and modesty of materials.

100K Houses, Philadelphia
Interface Studio Architects LLC

Photo © Interface Studios Architects

Small, efficient, and super-green, the 100K Houses provide sustainable, affordable options for first-time Philadelphia homebuyers.  The homes employ passive energy strategies which focus on building envelope quality rather than mechanical systems.  All of the homes have achieved LEED for Homes Platinum certification and use up to 75% less energy than a typical home.  The 100K Houses use simple materials and flush facades, employing texture, pattern and color as low cost, high impact treatments.

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Multifamily Living

The Multifamily Housing award recognizes outstanding apartment and condominium design.  Both high- and low-density projects for public and private clients were considered.  In addition to architectural design features, the jury assessed the integration of the building(s) into their context, including open and recreational space, transportation options and features that contribute to livable communities.

1111 E. Pike, Seattle
Olson Kundig Architects

Photo © Francis Zera

This mixed-use building brings architectural diversity to its neighborhood by serving as a modern counterpoint to nearby historicist structures.  The site’s “auto row” history is captured in 1111’s tall, wide windows and high ceilings, the use of steel, and an exterior palette inspired by classic car colors from the 1950s. Simple materials and straightforward construction kept costs low, enabling people who work in the community to live there as well.  Pre-selected exterior panel colors were designed to be chosen by each unit’s owners.

50 Saint Peter Street/Historic Salem Jail, Salem, MA
Finegold Alexander + Associates

Photo © Neil Alexander Photography

Rehabilitation of an historic 1813 jail complex as a multi-family housing, mixed-use sustainable development knitted together various aspects of the site—history and culture, built and natural environment, economic and social stability—to contribute to the city’s interest in being a livable community.  Abandoned for decades, yet located on prime real estate, the jail was an eyesore—trash, chain link, razor wire, and vandalism—and inhibited surrounding development. It is now a positive contributor to the community with 23 units of housing, a popular restaurant, and an active, landscaped site.

930 Poydras Residential Tower, New Orleans
Eskew+Dumez+Ripple

Photo © Timothy Hursley

This 21-story, 462,000 square foot mixed-use residential project includes ground floor retail and 250 residential apartments above a 500-car garage base.  Designed to re-imagine the typically horizontal condition of New Orleans' dense French Quarter blocks as a vertical condition, the project is organized to create a communal amenity floor at the 9th level, reinterpreting the courtyard housing typology for urban, high-rise living.  At this raised "courtyard" level, shuttle elevators transfer from garage to tower in order to promote opportunities for residents to cross paths with one another in a shared, communal space.

Armstrong Place Senior and Family Housing, San Francisco
David Baker + Partners, Architects

Photo © Brian Rose

This complex development fills a formerly industrial 3-acre block with an innovative housing mix: Affordable townhomes keep growing families in the city, while the adjacent senior apartment building ensures that seniors don’t live in isolation.  Leading a trend of transit-oriented development along the district’s main corridor, the 115-unit senior building serves as an anchor, offering neighborhood-serving retail and presenting an iconic tower that signals a sense of place.  Behind, the 124 family townhomes enclose a grand courtyard that features picnic areas and garden plots.  The senior apartments are in the final stage of LEED NC Gold Certification.

Art Stable, Seattle, WA
Olson Kundig Architects

Art Stable, Seattle, WA

Built on the site of a former horse stable, the Art Stable carries its working history into the future with highly adaptable live/work units.  Both front and back elevations of the building are active.  The alley-facing façade features an 80-foot tall hinge, davit crane and five steel-clad, hand-cranked doors that cover nearly a third of the facade.  The system references a warehouse tradition in how it moves oversize objects into the building.  On the street side, large hinged windows open to provide natural ventilation throughout the units.

Hancock Mixed Use Housing, West Hollywood, CA
Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Inc.

Photo © Eric Staudenmaier

This mixed-use, multi-unit residential puts housing and people (rather than parking) at grade on the adjacent avenue and initiates a landscape sequence at the roof that organizes a prosaic use into more of a hillside square ringed by existing apartments and the new housing.  The town houses have private courtyards which modulate the scale as the building moves north to merge with the hillside neighborhood behind.  Interior spaces allow residents choice in their level of engagement with the boulevard, roof courtyards, and residential parking through use of sliding wooden panels and shades.

Tassafaronga Village, Oakland, CA
David Baker + Partners, Architects

Photo © Brian Rose

This new green neighborhood brings a diversity of affordable housing to an under-served area of Oakland, while repairing the deteriorated neighborhood fabric.  The 7.5-acre brownfield site—previously home to decrepit public housing, an abandoned factory, and unused train tracks—was an unhealthy living environment inviting to criminal activity. The vibrant village bridges the industrial-residential divide and features apartments, family townhouses, supportive housing, and a medical clinic.  New landscaped paths and traffic-calmed roadways connect housing to the library, schools, and a City park.  Tassafaronga Village achieved the first LEED ND Gold Certified Plan in California.

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