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Importantly, the 8NW8 building has also helped transform Portland's downtown, linking neighborhoods fractured by an arterial road and increasing socioeconomic diversity. It demonstrates to developers positive alternatives to "gentrification."

In addition to 8NW8, the Terner Prize jury announced five finalists, in California and New York, and eight semifinalists throughout the United States. Though substantially different in design, each project demonstrates Terner's ideals of combining affordability with good design and urban integration.

Housing the Homeless

Richard Harris is executive director of Central City Concern, the nonprofit organization that owns 8NW8 and works to provide pathways to self-sufficiency through active intervention in poverty and homelessness. The building project also involved collaboration with Downtown Community Housing, Portland City Council, and the Portland Development Commission.

Harris says: "SERA Architects designed this beautiful building and that's what people see on the outside, but the real beauty is inside. I can't list all the amazing ways people find healing at 8NW8 every day, recover, and rebuild their lives and how a spirit of respect grows and extends out into the neighborhood and the Portland community."

The 81,000-square-foot (7,500-square-meter) building includes 120 single-room occupancy units on six floors, with supportive services and case management. On the top four floors are 60 studio units for longer-term, special-needs residents. The bottom two floors house a health clinic, meeting rooms, and community facilities.

Residential units are in the wings of the L-shaped structure; the corners include common areas and balconies overlooking a park at each floor level. The two-story base is wrapped in a curvilinear glass wall to reinforce connections between the building's public function, the street, and the park. High above, the roof line mirrors the undulating glass facade. The building is clad in sandstone-colored brick, echoing the surrounding structures.

Construction quality was a high priority, and 8NW8 was built with durable materials to minimize upkeep costs and to extend the building's expected lifespan to 100 years.

The project was supported by city and county governments because it enhances broader livability and urban renewal activities and directly supports Portland's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. The project benefits the local economy because residents are able to stabilize and become self-sufficient, rejoining the social and economic mainstream. The urban environment has benefited as well: 8NW8 is high-density infill, building on existing infrastructure, and rehabilitating a previously degraded industrial site.

Five Finalists

Other projects were also cited as role models for introducing plentiful, attractive, affordable housing. Tierra del Sol, run by the group New Economics for Women, sits on a five-acre (2-hectare) tract in Canoga Park, California. The project consists of 119 one- to five-bedroom rental apartments for single-parent, low-income households plus a charter elementary school with a full-size gymnasium.

The historic Burnham Building, in Irvington, New York, a wood frame and masonry structure built as a boiler factory in 1881, was adapted by Stephen Tilly Architects for the Affordable Housing Development Corporation — a subsidiary of the Jonathan Rose Companies — for use as a public library and 22 rental apartments for low-income working families and retirees.

In San Francisco, the Mission Creek Community was designed by Hardison Komatsu Ivelich & Tucker and Santos Prescott and Associates for Mercy Housing California. The architects created a new neighborhood on the site of a former rail yard to provide supportive housing for frail, low-income seniors, including many with HIV/AIDS. The project also includes a new public library, an adult day health center, retail space, public meeting rooms, and office space for nonprofit groups.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The 2007 Terner Prize for affordable housing went to 8NW8, in Portland, Oregon, by SERA Architects, Inc. Photo: Michael Mathers Lobby of 8NW8. Photo: Michael Mathers Common room of 8NW8. Photo: Michael Mathers The building is clad in sandstone-colored brick, like surrounding structures. Photo: Clark Hays Ground floor plan, 8NW8. Image: SERA Architects Second floor plan, 8NW8. Image: SERA Architects Typical floor plan for single-room occupancy units, 8NW8. Image: SERA Architects Typical floor plan for studio apartment units, 8NW8. Image: SERA Architects   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.