The spreading global housing crisis and economic meltdown will not only change how house financing is done in the US, it will also thrust affordable housing into the spotlight more so than perhaps anytime since WWII.

Affordable housing used to come with a connotation of cheaply made boring unsafe structures with no discernible design and set in a neighborhood you might not want to venture out into after dark.

While the uber rich have gotten more uber, the Jones’s are having a difficult time keeping up with each other now that the realism of falling wages with concomitant rising house costs have kicked in. “Affordable” will now become exactly what it is – a relative term – relative to what the house owner can truly afford.

One architect firm has not only recognized the trend, they’ve done something about it, and were recently awarded the AIA National Honor Award and the AIA National Housing Award.

Kanner Architects’ recent awards won’t be lonely either while sitting in their display case. The firm has a string of similar awards stretching back to the beginning of the decade.

The AIA award winning 26th Street low income housing project is a precept for all future affordable housing projects, and one that should put an end to uninspired housing for the masses.

There are dozens (hundreds?) of design decisions made on behalf of the 26th Street project that illuminate and justify the AIA’s award. The first thing to be mentioned though is that the project location is directly on Santa Monica Boulevard, not a choice piece of land in the hills.

That’s important to note because it presents difficulty right from the start. To combat the noise and minimal separation from the street for instance the facade provides for ground level setback at each entrance freeing up ingress and egress. The street level facade is further protected from the street and pedestrians by an alternating vertical green fencing with horizontal slat wall fencing.

There are numerous other well-thought-out details in the overall construction similar to how the building deals with its blunt interaction with street and pedestrian traffic, but without launching into a full-scale review (it’s already been heavily reviewed) this project allows the opportunity to emphasize a larger point.

For the past three decades American residential affordable housing projects have been largely equated with cheap uninspired structures built strictly out of necessity. This mindset has helped to degrade cities across the US, simply because well-respected architectural firms and developers failed to get involved for fear of soiling their otherwise luxury brand.

Kanner is part of a more positive trend of upper echelon firms devoting resources to the new affordable housing movement. As Stephen Kanner, president of Kanner Architects has said, “whether our single-level units are high-end or low-income, the spatial design principles are the same.” That’s the kind of committment to excellence American cities are going to need over the next decades as the country tries to build its way out of the housing crisis.

Or as the AIA jury who awarded the 26th Street project said, “The design extends beyond the property line by addressing critical social issues.” MHM is fully supportive of the new affordable housing movement that will reshape how we live for decades to come, and it will be interesting to see how far imaginative thinking can improve living conditions for the masses.

Media: 26th Street Low Income Project