National Building Museum Highlights 18
Well-Designed Affordable Housing Projects
March
8, 2004 — The successful housing projects of two
NeighborWorks organizations—Affordable Housing Resources,
Inc., of Tennessee, and Colorado Rural Housing Development Corporation—were
selected on the basis of design excellence for a new exhibition
at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
The exhibition, "Affordable Housing: Designing An American
Asset," demonstrates an increased recognition of residents'
needs and a new understanding that affordable housing can be an
integral and beneficial component of any community.
The Tierra Nueva Phase II project in Center, Colo., for example,
uses design to create a sense of community for migrant farm communities.
Each home has a front porch and lots of windows. Workers pay 30
percent of their seasonal income to rent a room. The project is
sponsored by San Luis Valley Farm Worker Housing, Inc., and funded
in part by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. Colorado
Rural Housing Development Corporation, a NeighborWorks organization,
provided consultancy services for the project.
Affordable Housing Resources' 29-unit townhome project
in downtown Nashville, "Row 8.9n," was also selected
for the exhibition. The townhomes, designed by Everton Oglesby
Architects, "embody the spirit of some of the best 1920s
modern designs and yet look perfectly at home and thoroughly contemporary,"
said Washington Post architecture critic Benjamin Forgey. [View
article from The Washington Post].
The National Building Museum exhibit features 18 projects in
all, located across the nation and in a range of urban and rural
settings. The projects show that quality and aesthetics do not
have to be sacrificed for affordability. For more information
on the exhibit, which is on view until August 8, 2004, visit the
National Building Museum Web site, http://www.nbm.org.
The NeighborWorks network, comprised of more than 225 community-based
organizations, is supported by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation,
a national nonprofit organization created and funded by Congress.
For more information on the NeighborWorks network, visit www.nw.org.
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