In 2003 in Utah, government officials decided to try a radical solution to homelessness: giving people who would otherwise be on the street permanent housing. Twelve years later, the surprisingly cost-effective program is a success: almost all of the people given homes remained in them, and the number of people out on the streets in the state has dropped nearly to zero. So what works and what doesn't architecturally in homeless housing? 

James Furzer, a 26-year old architectural technician for the U.K.-based Spatial Design Architects, is currently crowdsourcing funds to build single-person housing modules that attach to preexisting buildings in dense urban centers like London, where 7,500 people routinely sleep on the streets.

The Fakro’s Space for New Visions award-winning design is a great emergency shelter idea, but doesn't foster a sense of permanence, unlike Utah's Sunrise Metro Apartments, which take the form of a traditional (relatively aesthetically boring) apartment building with 100 studio and one bedroom apartments.

Of course, there is a compromise between these two forms, as realized in 2011's low-slung WAN Award-Winning Homeless Shelter as designed by Larraz Arquitectos. 

This design combines the install-it-anywhere austerity of the single person module with the permanence of a settled community. It's visually compelling while providing a sense of a 'place' as opposed to merely a 'pod.'