Housing and Community Development

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AIA26 HCD Tour Recap

  
By Karen Kubey, Assoc. AIA
On behalf of the AIA Right to Housing Working Group, I was happy to co-organize two tours for the AIA26 Conference with Casa Familiar, Inc., an environmental justice nonprofit in San Ysidro, and the legendary Ted Smith, pioneering architect of shared housing in San Diego's Little Italy.
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Tour: Casa Familiar Walking Tour: Social Impact Design Innovation
Local Tour Leader: Georgette Gomez w/ Casa Familiar partners
Co-Organizer: Ceara O'Leary
 
We toured Beyer Station Cultural Corridor, La Semilla Climate Resiliency Center, Living Rooms at the Border (architects: Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman), Avanzando San Ysidro (an in-progress, 2-site community land trust providing 103 units of permanently affordable housing; architects: Yellow Giraffe Architects), and The Front (a mixed-use community gallery). Casa Familiar exemplifies the right-to-housing concepts of "culturally adequate" and "habitable" housing.
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Tour: Social Impact Design Initiatives in Little Italy and Along the Waterfront
Local Tour Leaders: David Marshall, AIA and Ted Smith
 
We toured Seaport Village on the waterfront, and in Little Italy the LIND Block (developed and designed by Smith with a group of architect-developers in the late 1990s, and providing affordable co-housing to this day), and the 20 Year Block (a nearby second example by a group of architect-developers). Smith's work demonstrates a novel path to the right-to-housing aspect "affordability," made possible by mastering building code loopholes and taking charge of financing and development.
 
The second tour was co-conceived by the late Philip J. Bona, FAIA. May his memory be a blessing.
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Through public programs, the AIA Right to Housing Working Group asks: “What does the right to housing mean in practice?” and “How might architects contribute?”
   
See the tour photo gallery below.
   
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