Case Studies in New Classical & Traditional Design: Neighborhoods of Affordable Housing

Unique approaches to developing affordable housing in varied contexts across the country

The Case Studies in New Classical & Traditional Design series explores the design and execution of new contemporary classical and traditional work from the practitioner’s perspective. Each session explores a unique project or building type to demystify the complexities of how challenging projects successfully come together.

This installment of the series explores design strategies implemented by past winners of the Gindroz Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing: the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara (HACSB), honored in 2022, and Union Studio, honored in 2023.

In their presentations, Rob Fredericks, Executive Director and CEO of HACSB, and Christine Pierron, Partner at the Santa Barbara-based Cearnal Collective, speak about how they planned and built affordable housing units in Santa Barbara, a city with one of the highest costs of living in the country. Donald Powers, Founding Partner at Union Studio in Providence, Rhode Island, explains why he made affordable housing a key pillar of his firm's work, and shares practical solutions for how to get housing built faster and more affordably.

The lectures were presented at the inaugural Gindroz Award Symposium on Affordable Housing, a half-day event that brought together past recipients of the Gindroz Award for a series of lectures and panel discussions. This is the second recording from the event, following Learning from Nansledan. The last portion of the event, Excellence in the Design of Affordable Housing, included a panel discussion with all of the featured winners, and closing remarks from the award's namesake, Ray Gindroz.

Learning Objectives

• Learn how traditional building types can be deployed in the design of affordable housing that provides for safe and supportive environments while also enhancing regional architectural character.
• Advance professional knowledge regarding creative design solutions and best practices in the field of affordable housing.
• Discuss how an understanding of local needs and identity can lead to socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable communities.
• Explore strategies for designing mixed-use and walkable neighborhoods.

Assessment & Credit

Viewers may receive 1.25 AIA CES Learning Units|HSW and 1.25 credits towards the Certificate in Classical Architecture (Elective) by watching this video course and subsequently scoring at least 70% on a summative assessment that tests your understanding of the material. For more information on Continuing Education credit, please email [email protected], or call 212-730-9646 x 112.

The assessment is available here.

Course Feedback Form

Once you have watched the course, we would appreciate your feedback on the course content via this anonymous feedback form, which will help us to improve future online courses.

Prerequisites

There are no pre-requisites required for this course.

AIA Continuing Education Provider Information

Sponsors

The ICAA is grateful for the support of the Muse Family Foundation for making the Gindroz Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing possible, and to Suzanne Santry and Russell Windham for providing additional support.

Presented as part of The Richard H. Driehaus Curricula for the Built Environment at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The ICAA is very grateful to The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for its generous support of this program.

Tags: education, video course, credit available, case studies