NOMA Rise: 2015 NOMA National Conference

Design and Development Strategies for Creating Well Designed, Healthy and Affordable Housing

Design has the capacity to help create a healthier, equitable and just world. This seminar will focus on both the design and the development of high quality affordable green housing. The speakers will examine the relationship between creating well designed green housing, the health benefits and strategies for securing the funding to achieve these goals.

Increasingly, affordable housing funding goes to projects that demonstrate highly sustainable planning strategies such as green buildings, quality urban design, transportation choices, and community benefits.
There is a need for architects to have a greater understanding of the integrated strategies that are required to both design and assist their clients with funding the development of this building type.

The Affordable Housing Design Advisor describes providing affordable housing as different from most other forms of real estate development. “The process typically involves community and resident participation in ways that for-profit developments may not. It can also be highly politicized, especially if NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) attitudes are present. Sites can also be problematic. Regulations can be tortuous. And budgets are always too low.”

Examples from real-world projects will be used to illustrate the specific understanding and special skills required by a design team to create well designed, healthy and affordable housing.