Multi-family

Peris + Toral Arquitectes, the same Barcelona firm behind the 2024 RIBA International Prize–winning Modulus Matrix, designed Borrassá, a mixed-used building with 54 social housing units, in the city’s Besòs district. The brick lattice walls help ventilate the atrium.

Barcelona firms MIAS Architects and Coll-Leclerc completed 72 social housing units in the Marina del Prat Vermell neighborhood in 2023. The facade features alternating vertical strips of glass and ribbed fiber-reinforced concrete. The triangular building’s openings are designed to maximize solar gain in winter and provide solar shading and cross ventilation in summer on all floors.

The outdoor circulation areas at LOHA’s Sun King development in Los Angeles—combined with operable windows and a blazing paint job—prevent the project from being “a generic box,” its architect says, while ensuring the project lives up to its name.

In Boston, MASS Design Group’s J. J. Carroll Apartments used a low-income housing tax credit to transform an outdated senior-housing complex.

Block Architects used materials that highlight the flora of the Pacific Northwest. The slatted ceilings of the main-level community spaces, for example, are made of Pacific Albus.

Inside, floor-to-ceiling windows in the reception area bring in southern light.

With close proximity to the beach, the unit provides a cozy, simple, and peaceful retreat."

Unit #6 is located in the award-winning Condominium One, the first building designed as part of the Sea Ranch development. Today, it is widely known as one of the most significant landmarks of post-war American Architecture.

“When new buildings attempt to mimic original buildings, the result lessens the integrity of both new and old,” says Minarik. “The new should honor the new uses, without challenging the old for attention.”

The goal of the Polk Bungalows was to make it feel “like a community within a community,” says architect Aaron Bass.

Each modern bungalow enjoys private outdoor space in the form of a ground level patio — a nod to the signature bungalow porch.

A 12-foot wide span containing a pocket door completely eliminates the outdoor-indoor barrier on the living level. Operable windows — including the casement in the background — were designed with sizable proportions and full height conditions. “We tried to make the majority of the windows at the scale of a person, almost to where it felt like a door,” says Bass.

In addition to the common architectural threads, the modern bungalows relate to the historic structure through color — borrowing the punchy pink for an accent at the entry.