The Washington-area Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority wanted to provide its residents with decent, affordable housing, and the group trumped “decent” and won the 2012 LEED For Homes Project of the Year award. Overlooking the Puget Sound tidal flats, the complex—which includes the longhouses, a community building, a future sweat lodge, a remodeled gymnasium, and a restored habitat corridor—contains ten LEED Platinum apartments that were designed by mixing traditional shed-roofed longhouses with modern courtyard townhouses. A central, open-roof common area eliminates corridors and encourages ventilation and illumination, calling back to the traditional strategy of removing roof planks. Ample roof overhangs maximize passive solar energy and daylight, and the buildings have north- and south-facing windows, promoting natural ventilation. The community building preserved an existing building’s cedar siding, another synthesis of old and new.
