Small Project Design

The Small Project Design advisory group is pleased to announce the recipients of the Small Project Design Knowledge Community Grant. The purpose of this grant is to provide financial support for non-profit organizations working with architects on community-based projects. Along with supporting the work of non-profits, we want to demonstrate the value of hiring an architecture firm (and AIA member) for community projects, by helping cover some of the costs associated with hiring the design team.

2025 Recipients

Acton Food Pantry Maple Street Renovation
Organization: Acton Food Pantry
Architecture Firm: Woolfall Architecture + Interiors LLC

Acton Food Pantry serves both Acton, Massachusetts, and the surrounding communities, and with food insecurity among those communities on the rise, they require a jump in scale to support the growing need. The Pantry will be renovating and relocating to an under-utilized existing building in South Acton center, accessible by public transit and a state-wide bike path that reuses local rail lines.
Working with the design team, the Pantry envisions that this larger 6,000 SF building will house a welcoming and warm market-style Pantry, allowing clients a more retail-like browsing experience, tailoring their grocery selection to their household’s needs. Their new location will also enable a larger quantity of food storage, with large walk-in coolers and freezers as well as increased storage capacity for dry goods and household goods. Staff and volunteers will benefit from office space to better register and guide clients. This increase in support facilities will enable longer and more flexible operating hours to better serve client’s varying schedules.

Antelope Campground Educational Cabin
Organization: American Prairie Foundation
Architecture Firm: Love Schack Architecture

Located in Montana, above the Missouri River near the Charles M. Russel National Wildlife Refuge, a critical habitat for elk and other wildlife, the Antelope Creek Campground provides services and shelter in 
an otherwise wild landscape. The campground offers 12 campsites and a bath house.
In spring and fall, AP welcomes students to their Field School, working with teachers and biologists to learn about the prairie ecosystem. They typically camp in tents and learn outside. This project is for a cabin that will provide sheltered space from what can be a very harsh environment, for gathering, education, and rest, and will help the educational and cultural program grow.
This program focuses on underserved local populations of indigenous communities, using the campground and the prairie as a facility to educate and enhance the understanding of indigenous cultures. Scholars from the Lakota and Blackfeet Tribes are engaged to continue the tradition of sharing language and history of their communities and their lives on the prairie. This cabin will also be available to the public, and to honor AP’s mission, the cost will remain below market rate.

OurStory housing system
Organization: Partners for Livable Omaha
Architecture Firm: Actual Architecture Co.

Omaha is facing a housing crisis, and needs roughly 100,000 new homes by 2050, with nearly 32% for older adults, according to AARP Nebraska. Many older adults will be on fixed incomes, needing smaller, affordable homes that don’t exist today. The OurStory project, led by Livable Omaha and its partners is creating that market. OurStory is already being celebrated statewide as a highly adaptable housing solution that reimagines traditional single-family homes to help fill the gap in affordable housing. OurStory designs introduce cutting-edge features like structural insulated panels and prefabricated components. OurStory designs reduce construction time, boost energy efficiency, and offer a lower-cost solution without sacrificing quality. 

Our vision is for the OurStory housing system to be radically accessible to all Nebraskans creating housing. To scale up the production of OurStory units across the state, we will use AIA funds to hire an architectural intern devoted to the task of making a catalog for the OurStory housing system. They will be under the direct supervision of Jeff Day, FAIA, at Actual Architecture Company. The catalog will build on the success of OurStory’s proof-of-concept build (in progress). It will offer additional home customization options, building variations, and site plans that illustrate the use of the designs as: single-family infill, accessory dwellings, cottage courts and cluster developments. This catalog will lay the groundwork for our team to then provide continued architectural services and technical assistance to future clients who are building OurStory homes in Eastern Nebraska.

Phoenix Nest: A Women’s Sober Living Residence
Organization: Gratitude Club, Inc.
Architecture Firm: Architects in Common, LLC

The Gratitude Club, Inc. is launching a transformative capital project to create a transitional sober living residence for women in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. This initiative addresses a critical gap in local recovery services, as there are currently no sober living options for women in the region. The new residence will provide a safe, structured, and supportive environment for women in early recovery to rebuild their lives, maintain sobriety, and transition toward independent living. This project aligns with the Gratitude Club’s mission to foster healing through connection, accountability, and community. Serving more than 250 individuals weekly, the Gratitude Club is a central hub for recovery, offering daily meetings and events that support sobriety and community engagement. The addition of a women’s residence will extend the Club’s impact by offering stability, connection, and purpose to women exiting treatment or navigating early recovery—an especially vulnerable time.
The architect’s role is essential in transforming this vision into a safe, functional, and welcoming home. Working closely with the Gratitude Club and construction partners, the architect will design a space that is not only code-compliant and cost-efficient, but also trauma-informed, ADA accessible, and sustainably built. The layout will prioritize both privacy and community—key components of successful recovery housing—by offering private bedrooms, shared common areas, and space for programming and peer support. Sustainable materials, energy-efficient systems, and thoughtful landscaping will contribute to a low-impact, long-term model for affordable operation. Organization: Gratitude Club, Inc.
Architecture Firm: Architects in Common, LLC

YMCA Twig
Organization: YMCA of the Seven Council Fires
Architecture Firm: Siris Coombs Architecture, PLLC

The YMCA of the Seven Council Fires (Y 7 Fires), in partnership with the YMCA Alumni National Service Project, has selected Siris Coombs Architecture as their Architect for the design of a prototypical "Twig" on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. A Twig is a tiny branch of the YMCA suitable for a rural community. The Y 7 Fires is located in Dupree, South Dakota, on the prairie lands of the Cheyenne River Reservation. The fourth largest U.S. Reservation by land area, it stretches 4,400 square miles and is home to over 5,200 members of the Lakota Nation. The Cheyenne River Reservation is about the size of Connecticut, but has an average population of 1 person per square mile.
The geography of the reservation means people can travel over 100 miles to do everyday activities like buying food, home goods or accessing health care. Some communities are over 50 miles from the nearest gas station, making it a financial hardship just to get the gas needed to do the things one needs to do. The distance also makes consistent employment challenging, contributing to a 47% unemployment rate among tribal members and a per capita income on the reservation is $25,000 (compared to the U.S. average of $68,500). 

The YMCA has commissioned the design of several ‘Twigs’ to bring community services closer to families in this geographically dispersed area. They will support family stability on a daily basis and resilience in times of disaster.The first Twig, which is the focus of this application, will be a multigenerational Lakota Art Making Space with a staff apartment attached. It will be constructed from two repurposed 40' long shipping containers and one 20' container, in the rural community of La Plant - population 167. 

2024 Recipients

Building Bridges: Shaping Spaces for Family Permanency
Organization: Bridges Homeward
Architecture Firm: Architecture for Public Benefit

Black Regional Food Hub
Organization: Feed’em Freedom Foundation
Architecture Firm: Ink: BRIC Architecture

After more than a decade of supporting emerging farmers around the Portland metro area, we are working to purchase land and build a home base for our community programs. Funds from the AIA Small Projects Grant will support a feasibility study for the purchase and renovation of a 5-acre site in Gresham, Oregon for our future Black Regional Food Hub. 

 

This project will impact and benefit emerging Black farmers, youth, and food-insecure families in our community through apprenticeship programs, youth education, culturally-relevant food pantries, and food box deliveries. Black families in Oregon face unprecedented food insecurity that has only heightened in the years since the pandemic. Currently, 1 in 5 Black families in Oregon experience hunger, with 18% of Black families experiencing high food insecurity – a statistic that is three times higher than White, non-Hispanic families. To meet this high need, we have deepened our program capacity and our partnerships with other Black-led organizations, including the Black Oregon Land Trust, and we are now ready to secure land for a permanent home to better serve our communities. The Black Regional Food Hub will be a community center to grow and store food, build intergenerational skills and knowledge, aggregate small producers’ crops, and form growing contracts in collaboration with BIPOC processors to build sustainable community wealth.

 

2022 Recipients 
                 

The Garden Gateway
Organization: Center for Court Innovation Neighborhood Safety Initiatives
Architecture Firm: Interboro Partners

The Garden Gateway is a community-led micro-project to enliven a precious public space at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)-owned Patterson Houses in the South Bronx, NYC, undertaken as a collaboration between local residents, the NYC Center for Court Innovation (CCI), and Interboro Partners, our AIA-affiliated architecture and urban design firm. This 1,750-sf intervention includes the transformation of an underutilized paved area into an adult exercise space, as well as a gateway pavilion that creates a new entry into an existing community garden and storage for exercise equipment and gardening tools. Through these simple design moves, the Gateway maximizes residents’ vision for a more socially, environmentally, and physically healthy neighborhood.


                        

The Blue Bird Inn
Organization: Detroit Sound Conservancy
Architecture Firm: Quinn Evans Architects

Detroit Sound Conservancy, a nonprofit community-based music archive, will redesign The Blue Bird Inn, a former working-class, African American owned and operated jazz club at 5021 Tireman on Detroit's Old West Side, into a music venue, gathering space, and cultural education center. All uses will be welcoming, accessible, and intergenerational with an emphasis on preserving our heritage for an innovative collaborative future.

Sioux YMCA Tiny Home Community
Organization: Sioux YMCA
Architecture Firm: Siris Coombs Architecture

The Cheyenne River Reservation faces critical needs for both housing and employment. Designed through community engagement with Lakota elders and youth, the YMCA Tiny Home Community aims to meet both of these by offering transitional housing alongside support for equitable access to employment. The project will empower residents with the resources to live independently and support for spiritual and mental healing.

2021 Recipients
                    

Cedar Lee Mini-Park
Organization: Future Heights
Architecture firm: Kordalski Architects, Inc.

FutureHeights, a nonprofit community development corporation, plans to transform an under-utilized public right-of-way, into a welcoming and inclusive park for the Cedar Lee Business District and surrounding residential neighborhoods of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The site, roughly 50’ wide x 150’ deep, currently serves as a pass-through for visitors, connecting a public parking lot and garage to Lee Road businesses. Working in partnership with an AIA architect, FutureHeights will enhance the site to create a public, ADA-compliant gathering space for the community.

SAF Office & Farmworker Housing Advocacy Center

Organization: Student Action with Farmworkers
Architecture firm: Katherine Hogan Architects, PC

The project is the design of new a new office to support the work of Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF). The SAF Board and Staff wish to create a unique space that not only reflects their values but also the values of the farmworker communities that they support.

Safe and Healing Studio Sanctuary
Organization: Firebird Community Arts
Architecture firm: Wrap Architecture

The feasibility study for the renovation of the Firebird Community Arts studio will assist with strategic planning for potential studio improvements that can be implemented over time as funding sources become available. Project goals include creating a visual connection to the outdoor classroom, increasing natural light, improving indoor air quality, toilet room and breakroom upgrades, accessibility, signage, energy efficiency measures, and potential sources of renewable energy.

2020 Recipients
                      

Watershed Conservation Resource Center
Organization: Watershed Conservation Resource Center
Architecture firm: University of Arkansas Community Design Center

This small facility for an emerging river institute combines a private office/workshop space for a design-build operation in river restoration with a public watershed education/event seating 100 guests. The challenge is to accommodate conflicting requirements between both programs on a spartan budget. The WCRC facility must balance the need for a private and quiet work environment with the objective to project hospitality among community stakeholders in building watershed stewardship.