studio e rewrites the rules of affordable housing.
Studio E Architects did its very first affordable housing presentation in crayon on brown packing paper. While part of the stunt's aim was to introduce some humor into the dry process of choosing an architect, the members of the San Diego-based firm also wanted to show the developer their respect for the agricultural past of the project's Riverside, Calif., site. "We wanted the presentation drawings to look like the packaging on old-fashioned orange crates," says principal Eric Naslund, AIA.
They got the job. And in the 15 years between then and now, they've gotten many more. Studio E's work has changed the way people look at affordable housing. Their three AIA National Honor Awards for Architecture lend credence to their design skills for those developers and NIMBYs who haven't seen their projects in person. Those who have need no additional proof.
deep roots
The firm named itself after its first office space, a tiny studio in San Diego's now-gentrifying East Village. Back then, in 1987, Studio E consisted of just two employees: Brad Burke and Naslund. Burke, an Orange County, Calif., native and graduate of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, had spent five years as head of the housing division at a large local firm, Austin Veum Robbins Parshalle. Naslund graduated from the same school four years later and worked under Burke at AVRP. Most of their clients were merchant builders, and both architects felt a growing sense of frustration at the sales and marketing constraints that bind production housing. "There was definitely a need for standard tract housing," says Burke. "But the architect was at the bottom of the food chain."
So they broke off and started Studio E. In 1989 John Sheehan, a friend of Naslund's from Cal Poly, moved back west from Boston and joined them. The three made their living designing mostly remodels and the occasional new house--until they entered, and won, the competition for the Riverside project, called Casa Blanca. The difficult program--17 single-family houses ranging from 1,000 to 1,600 square feet on 2.3 acres--proved an intoxicating challenge. "We took the kit of parts from merchant builders and tried to use it in a different way," Naslund says. "The nonprofit developers were excited about that. That's what drew us into this."
Casa Blanca led to two more affordable commissions on which Studio E acted as the architect of record and then to one they designed outright. That project, Orange Place Cooperative Housing in Escondido, Calif., won them their first AIA National Honor Award in 1998. (The other two are also affordable projects: Indian Wells Senior Housing in Indian Wells, Calif., won in 2000, and Eleventh Avenue Townhomes in Escondido, Calif., won in 2001.)
Their early developer clients were small, private nonprofits who still team with Studio E today. "They designed one of my first affordable communities, Mission Terrace," says Matt Jumper, executive director of nonprofit San Diego Interfaith Housing. "I just fell in love with those guys. They think about the open space, the parking, everything--not just the buildings. They're my architect of choice." Working with local organizations that finance their developments with state money is an important part of the formula. "There's no HUD involvement in the projects we do," says Naslund. "Our projects are under local control, which means they're usually smaller and more fine-grained. It's a gentler way to build housing."
turning a profit
Studio E now employs 10 designers in addition to Burke, Naslund, and Sheehan, and each partner has a family to support. They're constantly surprised that their peers around the country assume designing affordable housing requires a vast financial sacrifice. "People don't realize you can make money doing affordable housing," says Sheehan. "The fees are comparable," adds Naslund. "The only thing that might be different is the fluidity of the money. It sometimes takes a little longer to get paid by a nonprofit because they don't have the cash reserves that a regular developer has."
The firm's dexterity at working with California's tax credit system also comes in handy. Every year, the state allots a fixed amount of funding in the form of tax credits for affordable housing. Proposals compete for points based on their fulfillment of certain criteria (energy efficiency, land conservation, and affordability, for example), and the ones that win the highest number of points are the ones that obtain funding. Studio E's projects consistently receive the maximum number of points available. Therefore, its proposals usually get built, which generally makes for a higher profit margin than projects that never get off the ground. This also increases the pool of developers clamoring for its services, which enables the firm to choose the projects it wants to do.
Aside from the fact that they can make a living at it, the partners and their staff all crave the excitement of solving the puzzles that affordable housing presents. "The merchant-built world was always asking 'Did it sell yesterday?' rather than 'Is it right for tomorrow?' " explains Naslund. With affordable housing, there are no sales quotas or market fluctuations to worry about--just thousands of low-income workers hungering for a decent place to live. The median price of a home in San Diego County (which includes the cities of San Diego; Poway, Calif.; and Escondido) has surpassed $330,000--a cost just one-fifth of the market can actually afford.
The nonprofit developers with whom Studio E works aren't afraid to take design risks because they know a little innovation won't scare customers away. "The demand is so great that if you build it, they will come," says Jumper. Those risks often pay off in the form of positive press and design awards. "The awards help our goal of community acceptance for affordable housing," says Sue Reynolds, executive director of Community Housing of North County in Escondido, Calif., the developer of Orange Place. "Studio E shares our mission of building pride and beauty through strong design."making places
A wide variety of sources have contributed to the firm's design sensibilities. Each partner has designed his own house, and all three use their living experiences to inform their work. "Our old house was one room wide all the way around," says Naslund. "Living there taught me how important it is to get light from more than one angle into a room." They encourage their staff to do the same. The teachings of Dutch architect Hermann Hertzberger and Belgian Lucien Kroll, who both advocate the end user's contribution to a building, have also affected Studio E's style. "We try to create places that invite you to make them your own," says Sheehan. Every community they've designed, for example, features some sort of usable outdoor space for every unit. The residents personalize these spaces with plants, furniture, and other outdoor dècor to give each one its own unique identity.
The partners believe firmly in the CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) guidelines pioneered by architect Oscar Newman and professor C. Ray Jeffrey, Ph.D., in the early 1970s. The guidelines list physical characteristics that reduce crime in communities, including clearly distinguished public and private spaces, sightlines from units to streets and parking areas, and pedestrian-friendly pathways.
But the biggest influence on Studio E's work is the concept of specificity--pertaining to both the site and the user. "With affordable housing, the owner has a mission," says Burke. "The needs are so specific. It's on us to meet that design challenge." They research not only the developer's program but also the area in which the project will be built, the history of the site, and the lifestyle of the user group. They study how the residents will go through the day, and they put as much time into designing the spaces between the units as they do into the units themselves.
A look at any Studio E project provides a clear example of this commitment to specific people and places. Take Indian Wells, a 90-unit desert community for low-income seniors. Knowing residents couldn't afford to run their air conditioning often, the architects designed sloped ceilings and Middle East-inspired thermal chimneys to funnel hot air out of each unit. Covered outdoor rooms strategically placed next to low, operable windows convey a steady supply of cool air into the homes. The units also have high-efficiency evaporative coolers. These measures ensure that the residents only have to turn on the air conditioning as a last resort.
Or look at Eleventh Avenue Townhomes in Escondido, 16-unit family housing in which the majority of renters are Latino. Studio E learned that Latino residents typically tend to socialize in the front yard, rather than the back. Though space was limited, they managed to accommodate this preference by carving out a front stoop area and small front yard for each unit. And at Brookview Terrace, 102-unit senior housing in Poway, they turned a site liability--a creek running down the middle of the parcel--into an amenity. By working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they redirected the creek so it could function as a natural drainage swale. Landscape architect Spurlock Poirier of San Diego filled its banks with native grasses, flowers, and trees, and Studio E designed a footbridge across it. The creek became a celebration of the site's idiosyncrasies.
Adjustments like these often add to the cost of a development, but Studio E saves money by choosing less-expensive materials. "They rethink the way off-the-shelf materials are used," says Kevin deFreitas, a former employee who now co-runs Sebastian & deFreitas, an architecture and development firm in San Diego. Traditional production housing elements such as concrete block, cement-board siding, aluminum windows, and stucco get combined in unexpected ways to produce homes that, as deFreitas says, "challenge people who walk by." At Orange Place Cooperative Housing, the lower floors of each two-story unit are clad in stucco. Metal siding defines the upper floor's master bedroom side, while composite wood siding marks the second floor's guest bedroom section. The result is a simple pattern of differently colored and textured boxes that gives the project a rhythm missing from most assembly-line housing.
expect the unexpected
Studio E's office culture strays from the norm: Interns and staff designers are encouraged to speak up and present their ideas, no matter how off-the-wall they may seem. "No idea wasn't worth exploring," recalls deFreitas. Twice-weekly meetings keep the entire office connected, and outings such as a summer picnic and a yearly retreat enhance camaraderie. The firm's ranks are slowly swelling. It's grown from 10 to 13 people within the past year, and it's opened a satellite office in Escondido. Now, company events aren't just nice perks, they're necessary in order to "keep it tight," as Burke says, to ensure constant communication among everyone at the firm.
"Assume nothing" is one of the partners' favorite axioms. They usually mean it in a design context, but it could apply just as easily to Studio E's evolution. Instead of settling down into affordable housing, the area where they've been most visible, they've branched out into San Diego's red-hot market-rate universe. They're designing several mixed-use half-blocks in and around the city that will contain mid-priced rental apartments and retail. And they're working on a pair of parking garages with RNP Architects of San Diego for the new San Diego Padres Ballpark, designed by Antoine Predock. The garages will be wrapped with a skin of residential and retail units. The firm also recently designed its first school--a charter school in Escondido.
But the partners certainly won't drop affordable housing. Affordable special-needs projects on the boards include a transitional housing community for battered women in San Diego and one in San Jose, Calif., with cohousing. They're juggling nine other affordable special-needs and family- and senior-housing projects. "These people are the backbone of the U.S.A.," says Naslund of the farmhands, construction workers, and service-industry professionals who line up to live in Studio E's communities. "If they get priced out of the market, things will fall apart."
