The Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute and Klyde Warren Park have been selected as the 2018 recipients of the Collaborative Achievement Award, which recognizes and encourages distinguished achievements of allied professionals, clients, organizations, architect teams, knowledge communities, and others who have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession. The recipients will be honored at the AIA Conference on Architecture 2018 in New York City.
Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute funded by Enterprise Community Partners
Photo: Michael Walmsley
For nearly a decade, the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute (AHDLI) funded by Enterprise Community Partners, has been a quiet but powerful force shaping social impact design. Modeled on the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, it assembles development and design leaders to focus on the ways in which architecture can produce more livable and sustainable housing for low- and middle-income people across the United States. During its short life, the institute has had a profound effect on the affordable housing ecosystem and has cultivated partnerships with more than 70 nonprofit and community groups in several communities.
Whether it’s improving four-unit historic buildings that serve a primarily refugee neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, or single-family homes for 300 Native American families in Arizona, the AHDLI process begins with a two-and-a-half-day charrette bolstered by a rigorous design curriculum. In that short time, the institute can radically alter the trajectory of development projects while equipping a new class of leaders with the tools to champion design excellence. Surveys have shown that as a result of AHDLI participation the vast majority of participants work more effectively with designers, address design much earlier in the development process, and ask more of their architect.
AHDLI, founded by Katie Swenson, Lawrence Scarpa and Maurice Cox, is the embodiment of what can happen when architects are fully engaged with leaders from outside the profession. Participants often become instant advocates, and the resulting innovative collaborations directly benefit people and communities in need.
Photo: Dillon Diers Photography.
Klyde Warren Park healed a rift in Dallas where a freeway once divided two vital sections of the city, overcoming an obstacle that many residents feared was permanent. The park, completed in 2012, required significant funding and buy-in from the public and private sectors, but the efforts resulted in 5 acres of activated, world-class green space that has redefined the city and its self-image.
Designed by The Office of James Burnett, Klyde Warren Park is perched above Spur 366 and caps what was once a high-speed concrete canyon. A feat of engineering, the park’s deck was constructed with more than 300 concrete beams and slabs, a combination that creates trenches that play the role of planting boxes for 37 native plant species and more than 300 trees. LEED Gold–certified, the park relies on a number of practical sustainable strategies resulting in a 40 percent reduction in potable water use. Its trees intercept nearly 25,000 gallons of stormwater runoff and sequester approximately 18,500 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.
Recent studies have shown that the urban oasis has improved the quality of life for more than 90 percent of Dallasites, and has generated more than $1 billion in new development within a quarter-mile radius since the project was announced in 2009. Further bolstering the city’s Arts District, the park abuts the Renzo Piano–designed Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art. The entire district saw its economic impact triple, due in large part to a significant increase in street activity since Klyde Warren Park’s completion.
The $97 million project was funded through a combination of city bond, state highway, and federal stimulus funds as well as $55 million in private donations. The project is now managed by the Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helped secure early funding for feasibility studies and maintained its momentum during the depths of the Great Recession.
The jury for the 2018 Collaborative Achievement Award includes: Rik Master, FAIA (Chair), USG Corporation; Patrick Burke, FAIA, Columbia University; Lindsey Graff, Assoc. AIA, Ayers Saint Gross Architects; Libby Haslam, AIA, GSBS Architects; and R. Steven Lewis, FAIA, TRC Energy Services.
Related Stories
| May 10, 2012
Chapter 6 Energy Codes + Reconstructed Buildings: 2012 and Beyond
Our experts analyze the next generation of energy and green building codes and how they impact reconstruction.
| May 10, 2012
Chapter 5 LEED-EB and Green Globes CIEB: Rating Sustainable Reconstruction
Certification for existing buildings under these two rating programs has overtaken that for new construction.
| May 10, 2012
Chapter 4 Business Case for High-Performance Reconstructed Buildings
Five reconstruction projects in one city make a bottom-line case for reconstruction across the country.
| May 10, 2012
Chapter 3 How Building Technologies Contribute to Reconstruction Advances
Building Teams are employing a wide variety of components and systems in their reconstruction projects.
| May 10, 2012
Chapter 2 Exemplary High-Performance Reconstruction Projects
Several case studies show how to successfully renovate existing structures into high-performance buildings.
| May 9, 2012
Chapter 1 Reconstruction: ‘The 99% Solution’ for Energy Savings in Buildings
As a share of total construction activity reconstruction has been on the rise in the U.S. and Canada in the last few years, which creates a golden opportunity for extensive energy savings.
| May 9, 2012
International green building speaker to keynote Australia’s largest building systems trade show
Green building, sustainability consultant, green building book author Jerry Yudelson will be the keynote speaker at the Air-Conditioning, Refrigeration and Building Systems (ARBS) conference in Melbourne, Australia.
| May 9, 2012
Tishman delivers Revel six weeks early
Revel stands more than 730 feet tall, consists of over 6.3 milliont--sf of space, and is enclosed by 836,762-sf of glass.
| May 9, 2012
Stoddert Elementary School in DC wins first US DOE Green Ribbon School Award
Sustainable materials, operational efficiency, and student engagement create high-performance, healthy environment for life-long learning.
| May 9, 2012
Shepley Bulfinch given IIDA Design award for Woodruff Library?
The design challenges included creating an entry sequence to orient patrons and highlight services; establishing a sense of identity visible from the exterior; and providing a flexible extended-hours access for part of the learning commons.
