Pugh + Scarpa won the 2010 AIA Architecture Firm Award in part for its ability to deliver design excellence to low-income communities. Its affordable housing project Step Up on 5th, in Santa Monica, provides 46 studio apartments for mentally disabled and formerly homeless occupants above ground-floor commercial spaces; and the much-honored Colorado Court complex in the same city houses 44 low-income residents, sheltering them from the sun behind an extensive array of photovoltaic panels.
Indeed, founding partner Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, says his firm’s work with community developers is the exception to the norm: “By and large these are good people trying to do good, but there’s a somewhat pervasive attitude that the poor will be happy with anything.” An inaugural conference scheduled for this summer aims to disseminate the Santa Monica–based studio’s knowledge more widely.
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