We now have an excellent body of work, and a stable of architects who can tailor the huge variety of design possibilities for any neighborhood in any city or suburb.

By Kathy Dorgan

The Village for Families and Children.

Recently, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s David Parish and I were discussing what constitutes good design in affordable housing. We chewed over principles that include fitting well into the surroundings, building to last, and fostering everything from good study habits to open-space preservation and anti-crime measures. And of course doing it all at very low cost. David noted that although our criteria were extensive, we’d missed the most important factor for both the residents and their neighbors. To make his point he offered a quote by Oscar Wilde: “Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.”

Well, I can optimistically report that an exciting cadre of developers and architects is filling the void with housing that is both affordable and pleasing to the eye. This isn’t a new idea. From charming settlement houses inspired by Chicago’s Hull House to Hartford’s Village for Families and Children, which was constructed in 1925 to house neglected children, stunning structures have successfully housed families with limited income and positively contributed to the landscapes of rural, suburban, and urban communities.

Unfortunately, while many of us delight in the great historic buildings built to house widows and workers, our collective image of affordable housing is often shaped by the ugly and regrettable “projects” that were designed to do little more than warehouse families with limited income. These mistakes include the characterless, monolithic high-rises and the rundown garden apartments built with poor materials in the wrong places.

Fortunately, there is an active movement of affordable-housing professionals who have learned from these failures, know how to avoid missteps, and are creating beautiful housing in every sense of the word. We know how to build successfully. We know where to build. And we know how to make homes sparkle and still be affordable to working families and individuals. Impossible, you say?

Well, you don’t need to take my word for it. Visit the National Building Museum’s web site at http://www.nbm.org/, click on the online exhibitions link, and select “Affordable Housing: Designing An American Asset.” You’ll find a collection of well-designed affordable housing that proves my point. Based on an exhibit at the museum that is now traveling nationally, the site showcases projects from around the nation that are strikingly gorgeous, perfect for their surroundings, able to foster community interaction and — yes — affordable to people making 60 to 80 percent of median income, or less.

I am proud to be the designer of two of the developments included in the exhibit — Dove Street Independent Housing in Albany, N.Y., is one of them — but my projects and others in the exhibit are hardly the exceptions. Homes in New Haven, Boston, Cambridge, and Charlestown are also included — and many more could have been. Across New England, the best developers of affordable housing are proving that with architectural skill, appropriate landscaping, creative use of space, and effective use of color, “affordable” doesn’t equal “ugly.”

Why showcase beautifully designed affordable housing? Because we are facing a housing crisis in which so much demand is chasing so little supply that housing prices are now out of reach for many middle-income workers. (Connecticut was 47th last year in housing units built per capita). What was once a problem for poor and homeless people is now an economic-growth problem facing our region — workers are leaving because housing is too expensive, and businesses will follow.

There are many reasons why some towns fight new housing. Some believe property values will decline; others fear increases in local costs or more traffic. Many believe that new housing will look dreadful. There are a multitude of good solutions to all of these concerns, and good design is one of them.

I’d be shocked if anyone reading this article wouldn’t be delighted to live in — or across the street from — any of the projects on display at the National Building Museum. They are truly assets to the community — gracious, exciting, attractive, and comfortable.

Each solution personifies what we’ve learned over the years. Good designers work with the community to plan a project that fits its vision, style, needs, and surroundings.

• If crime is a worry, we can cluster units and focus lighting and resident sight lines to eliminate unsupervised spaces.
  
• If energy costs are a problem, we can design to maximize cooling breezes and shut out blazing sunshine.
  
• If good students are a goal, we can design spaces conducive to privacy and good study habits.
  
• If open space is a concern, we can configure the units to maximize it.
  
• If compatibility with adjacent architecture is of importance, we can design a distinctive contemporary building that reflects the area’s heritage and character.
  
• If young families plan to expand, we can design structures that can grow.
  
• If extended families need a home, we can put a bedroom on the first floor for grandma or create private spaces in the attic for young relatives.
  
• If character and beauty are priorities, we know how to choose the right colors, the proper shape of the roof, the design of the railings, and the look of the trellises.
  We can create successful communities. And we can do it all under budget, by controlling soft costs and making smart decisions on materials.

The bottom line? We now have an excellent body of work, and a stable of architects who can tailor the huge variety of design possibilities for any neighborhood in any city or suburb. Now that we’ve proven we know how to do it, we must ensure that every future project in New England is measured by — and includes — those high design standards.

Why am I encouraged? It’s not just because it’s already happening in many municipalities, but because visionary leaders at the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, MassHousing, and other public-housing agencies are all changing their standards, or actively considering new ones, so that funding decisions are at least in part based on exceptional design.

The challenge for New Englanders is that their region is suffering from an affordable-housing shortage. The good news is that working together we can solve this problem with beautiful, functional, lasting homes that will fit perfectly in their neighborhoods and be a pleasure to live in and look at for years to come. If you don’t believe me, log on and see for yourself. T

Kathy Dorgan is the principal of Dorgan Architecture and Planning in Connecticut. Her designs for affordable housing are featured in Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing, The Design Advisor, and Design Matters. She is a recipient of the prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Design School, and was past president of the national Association for Community Design. This article was adapted from one that appeared in the Hartford Courant.