Two homeless shelters, an affordable housing complex, and a neighborhood renewal scheme are the recipients of the 2009 AIA/HUD Secretary Awards.

Announced in May, the winners were selected by the AIA’s Housing and Custom Residential Knowledge Community in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Awards, listed below, were bestowed in three categories: community-informed design, creating community connection, and excellence in affordable housing design.

Photo courtesy MVE & Partners

Irvington Terrace, by MVE & Partners, is a 100-unit, low-income complex in Fremont, California.

Community-Informed Design
Homeless Assistance Center
Dallas, Texas
CamargoCopeland Architects, LLP and Overland Partners Architects

Known as “The Bridge,” this facility offers a safe haven for more than 6,000 chronic or newly homeless people in Dallas. Originally designed for 400 people, it now serves up to 1,000 people a day, many of whom receive training and counseling. The project has tangible results: a significant number of residents have gone on to secure employment and/or permanent housing, and the facility has helped revitalize the neighborhood, where crime has dropped 18 percent. The Bridge offers evidence that shelters should not be isolated but integrated into the community.

Creating Community Connection
Project Place – Gatehouse
Boston, Massachusetts
Hacin + Associates, Inc.

A non-profit agency built this new facility to help homeless men and women reestablish themselves in society by offering job training, housing, and other support services. The six-story building contains 14 units of affordable SRO (single-room occupancy) apartments and a multi-use space, in addition to a ground-floor commercial restaurant space that subsidizes the rent for the SRO units and is a job generator for the neighborhood. This sustainable building—its LEED certification is pending—includes two geothermal wells that help heat and cool the building and cut down on energy bills.

Excellence in Affordable Housing Design
Bridgeton Neighborhood Revitalization
Bridgeton, New Jersey
Torti Gallas and Partners

This project entailed the revitalization of a rundown neighborhood in a small town in southern New Jersey. More than 100 new affordable housing units were constructed on former industrial sites, while old public housing buildings were torn down to make way for a new riverside park. The project was an atypical recipient of a HOPE VI grant; these grants typically are given to large cities to address large swaths of distressed public housing.

Irvington Terrace
Fremont, California
McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners, Inc.
This 100-unit, low-income housing development in Fremont strikes a balance between Modernist forms and a traditional village-square-like layout. Rows of housing surround two courtyards with adjacent public amenities. Flat-roofed apartments are articulated with interlocking rectilinear volumes that define individual units. The scheme avoids the austerity of past experiments in Modernist affordable housing by providing variety, complete with street-enlivening stoops and porches.