Page 78 - ArchDC_Summer_2018

ArchDC Summer 2018.qxp_Summer 2018 5/25/18 2:18 PM Page 76

American homes. Care was taken to organize separate
entrances to the health clinic and the [STFH facility] on
different faces of the building.”
On the inside, “the building provides for an internal
neighborhood of common spaces,” said Pierre Gendreau,
a senior project manager at LEO A DALY. The arrangement
“allows the residents a greater opportunity to interact
and form relationships within a collaborative yet
structured environment, so that exposure to shared
circumstances can potentially contribute to a positive
handling of individual circumstances.”
Studio Twenty Seven and LEO A DALY have
collaborated on six projects for the District government
in recent years, Gendreau said, with LEO A DALY
providing technical knowledge and regulatory-compliance
experience. One of those collaborations was La Casa, a
40-unit permanent supportive housing building for
homeless men at 1444 Irving Street, NW, in Washington’s
Columbia Heights neighborhood, that was covered in the
Winter 2016 issue of ARCHITECTUREDC. The building is
so smart-looking that passersby have been known to
mistake it for a market-rate building and enter it to
inquire about possible rentals.
“The objective of all District-owned facilities is for
durable, program-driven designs that are non-institutional,
contextually enhancing to the neighborhood, and can be
acknowledged by National Housing and AIA Design
Award Committees for exceptional design,” Burke said.
“La Casa achieved both. The joint venture team [Studio
Twenty Seven and LEO A DALY] was awarded the Ward
6 facility after competing in a public solicitation process.
The success of La Casa was presented as a demonstration
of the quality of design and level of professional services
offered by the team.”
Efforts to build supportive housing projects around
the city have led to heated debates, but the Ward 6 STFH
facility is moving ahead. “The design team cannot
overstate the support and guidance provided by the city
as a client, and the Ward 6 community as an active
partner,” Burke said. “The Ward 6 advisory team and
immediate neighbors deserve great credit for their
willingness to embrace this project from the very
beginning. They worked closely with the design team to
design a building that complemented the neighborhood
context and provided the best programmatic resolution
for the building’s clients.”
Creative responses to supportive housing, Gendreau
said, “can help de-stigmatize the public perception of
public housing, and in so doing help residents realize
that they still possess potential, self-worth, and a future,
rather than being seen as a forgotten segment of society.”
Burke added that “projects like La Casa and 850
Delaware Avenue are actually shrewd uses of public
funds. Although the chronic homeless now represent less
than 15% of the general homeless population, more than
half of the funds devoted to fighting all homelessness is
used for their care. Emergency services often associated
with chronic homelessness are expensive. Preventing
homelessness is a much more cost-effective option.”

76 HOME FOR A WHILE