HOW DO YOU DESIGN a state-of-the-art student apartment building located just a few hundred yards from the Rotunda of the University of Virginia, which was executed by none other than Thomas Jefferson? Very carefully.
Talk about a community that has it all. High Point, Seattle's first neighborhood to merge sustainable design with social conscience, is a 120-acre HUD Hope VI project that replaces, in the words of a Seattle Times editorial, “a hideous old public housing project of barracks-like structures” that were built for defense-plant workers at the start of World War II (think Rosie the Riveter)". Now, in place of those 716 decrepit units, are the first of 1,600 Built Green houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartments for more than 4,000 mixed-income residents. The neighborhood offers an ecologically friendly environment, including green spaces and pocket parks that conserve water resources and preserve old-growth trees.
TALK ABOUT A PROJECT THAT COVERS all the bases. Denny Park Apartments, a 50-unit, rent-restricted building in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood, is not only affordable, it's also one of the first projects to receive funding under the Enterprise Foundation's Green Communities initiative.
THERE'S NO GETTING AROUND the fact that clubhouses, which can include everything from locker rooms to pro shops to wine cellars, tend to be very large buildings.
