Resource Library

Update #1: Building Homes not Houses:
Adding Value to Affordable Housing Developments without Adding Cost

As someone involved in community development, your goal is not simply to provide basic shelter; it is to create homes and communities where people can live and work with pride. You can get everything else right - the political support, the funding, the permits - but when you hand the new residents their keys, it is design quality that will make the houses you've built feel like home and the open spaces you've created feel like enjoyable and usable "places." continue

Update #2: First Impressions:
Great Front Doors and the Difference Design Makes

Great front doors make great first impressions. And the front door, along with the sequence of experiences leading to it, sets the stage for a great place to live. Designing a successful entrance is not simply a matter of deciding what the door itself looks like. It matters where a front door is placed and how it addresses the neighborhood context. By thoughtfully designing front doors, you can go a long way toward improving a street's character and giving your clients a prideful place in their community. continue

Update #3: Designing Porches and Balconies That Work:
For You and Your Neighbors

Everybody loves a porch, and balconies are a favorite place to relax. It is important to think about porches and balconies in all of their roles: as enjoyable semi-private outside living spaces and as visual and functional areas of transition between the public street or sidewalk and the private area of the house. In addition, the character of many neighborhood streets is significantly impacted by the look and feel of the porches and balconies that face onto them. continue

Update #4: Stepping up to a great home: the value of well designed stairs
For You and Your Neighbors

Stairs are more than just vertical circulation, they are also important design elements which greatly impact daily life for residents and neighbors. Great exterior stairs can do more than just meet code, they can be a thoughtful part of the whole development and how it engages the street and sidewalk. Exterior stairs play an important part in the transition from public to private, something which any successful housing development needs to handle well. Interior stairsarealso important, and if thoughtfully considered they can make even a small floor plan feel spacious and pleasant. continue

Update #5: Inside the Front Door: Designing a Great Place to Live
For You and Your Neighbors

The drawings from Willowbrook Green, a development in Los Angeles, California which provides homes to families and seniors with very low to low incomes are great examples of just this process. Notice how the same apartment is furnished in two very different manners. If we look at the downstairs arrangements, one family has chosen to put dining and a den in the back and the living space up front. The other family has put the dining table up front and the living space in the back. This plan works equally well for both options. continue

Update #6:Designing outdoor rooms: ordinary outdoor
spaces become great outdoor places

Nearly every development has some outdoor space. In the worst cases, this space is nothing more than land left over after construction is finished. In the best cases, however, these spaces are consciously crafted into great outdoor “places,” treasured by residents and neighbors alike. The difference is design, and the way to make an outdoor place great is by designing it like an outdoor room. continue

Update #7: Benches and Beyond:
Designing Great Outdoor Seating

In the Design Update #5 we discussed the design of outdoor places and the core principle of treating them like outdoor “rooms.” In this Design Update we are going to talk about one of the most important components of those rooms - outdoor seating. continue