House of Grace is our client, CityTeam’s home to support services for women at risk of homelessness - offering transitional housing to women (and their children) facing challenges ranging in need from social, health, or economic hardship. In 2021, our client, CityTeam, acquired a site adjacent to House of Grace, with 50 more dwellings, enabling CityTeam to expand its programs at House of Grace by over 6x. This purchase prompted the evolution of House of Grace in a bigger vision: Grace Village. With this expansion came the need for a new community center with dedicated spaces to serve the expanded program, the need to renovate the newly acquired dwellings, and the need to create unity across the site through landscaping and building design. 

Grace Village is a has been a unique opportunity to create space for supportive services for women and their children attending a transitional women’s housing program. The new 2-story building will hold approximately 10,000 sf of CityTeam services including child care, career training, life skills training, and support groups for residents. Interiors are friendly and warm, with playful elements and splashes of color that respond to the different ages of occupants. Each interior space contains age-appropriate “nooks” that nod to the importance of a stable homes, while providing comforting spaces of solitude throughout the larger spaces. In the children’s center, this looks like reading, playing, and relaxing nooks; in the afterschool room, there is a nook for gaming and nooks for studying. In the adult spaces, nooks make space for focused work.

On the overall site, the L-shape of the new program building nestles itself within the residential buildings. The façade showcases circulatory paths, a language pulled from the exterior of the existing buildings, in a contemporary fashion. This expression unites the site - symbolically, it celebrates connections and community, while functionally, it aids in clear wayfinding by articulating entries. Exterior graphics and site features further connect to the programs within, tying the existing and new construction into a cohesive village. Outdoor spaces adjacent to the large exterior doors allows interior activities to expand outside for larger events or day-to-day use. This flexibility accommodates a wide variety of support services that can change over time in response to residents’ needs.

Parallel banding, solar shades, and wood trellis elements are integrated throughout the façade to shade windows and passively prevent overheating of interior spaces. Landscaped spaces on both the surrounding site and rooftop terrace utilize drought-tolerant plants, permeable pavers, and stormwater treatment areas keep the site cooler while reducing water usage.

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