The Lee is New York City’s first LEED Silver certified supportive housing by Common Ground. Common Ground is a New York based organization with a mission to end homelessness.  They build and operate housing for homeless and low-income individuals that is well designed with supports in place to help people rebuild their lives.  They also have programs in place that offer consistent support, and even have a “Street to Home” program which helps to identify and place individuals in need.  This program has had such high rates of success that the City of New York adopted its strategy in 2007.  The residence incorporates environmentally sustainable and energy-efficient design, construction, operation, and maintenance practices. Key green design features include a high performance condensing boiler; drought-resistant landscaping; individual temperature control; water-saving fixtures; high efficiency lighting; and a green roof.  The Lee offered multiple lighting challenges- not only were we to use every watt for the lighting systems (lamp and ballasts) judiciously, we also had to respect a very stringent budget with requirements to have minimum maintenance costs as they relate to operational and energy consumption.  The final result was a success, and received attention in the Architect’s Newspaper “These are a few of my favorite things” article, where the architect described the lighting design challenges of the project and was quoted saying “…Abhay Wadhwa at AWA Lighting Designers produced a great scheme for the Pitt Street Residence, tuned to the very last watt.”  We worked very closely with the architects to come up with solutions that could be incorporated into the architectural details- such that we were not encumbering the project with expensive fixtures or lamps- but using inexpensive, long-lasting fluorescent lamps in novel and innovative patterns and details.