Breaking the Mold of Transitional Housing

There has been a call from many corners to develop solutions to the homeless crisis striking Southern California. Funding is often the biggest challenge to overcome, and in Orange County like the Association of California Cities-Orange County is developing the Orange County Housing Trust to close the funding gap for projects. However, designers and architects can play an integral role in the development of homeless and transitional housing by designing projects that fit into the existing fabric of the community and in helping—through quality design—to gain support for transitional housing that exists in and within neighborhoods.

Retail Design Collaborative has used its skills to design a new community room at Wise Place, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness among women in Orange County. Wise Place challenged designers through a project called Transformation: Turning Space into Place to design a community room that would serve as a gathering place for the women in the center. “This was a unique program. It was really the first of its kind. When we got together with Herman Miller and Kathleen Neary. When we got together, there was no real precedent about this type of effort, but we were all in,” Jonathan Lopez, associate principal and design director at Retail Design Collaborative, tells GlobeSt.com. “The impetus for the design really came out of a conversation. We met with Kathleen Davis Bowman, the director of Wise Place, and the core idea that came out of that conversation and dialogue was to create a place where women would feel at home. That became the core idea of the community room.”

The space needed to be functional, welcoming and comfortable—but perhaps most importantly, it needed to serve as a front door. “The space had to work very hard on multiple fronts,” says Lopez. “It functions as the front door and the face of Wise Place, not only for the women, but also for the community. We were challenged to connect the women of Wise Place to the community while being respectful of their transition and their hard work.” RDC included features like storage space in the multipurpose room, which frequently hosts events, that could house chairs and fitness equipment when not in use, and a library wall stocked with reading material.

Lopez had not worked on a transitional housing project in this capacity before, but quickly realized how important a design skillset was to the project. “This was truly some new ground for my team and me,” he explains. “This project really resonated for me because this is my home. There is a responsibility for us to steward and use our expertise in a meaningful way. We have the knowhow to be resourceful in the built environment, and that was part of the design challenge. We can use our resources in ways that other benefactors who are giving in different ways, can’t. It is a great example of how we can use our expertise and relationships in a very different way. This is a good example of how we can utilize our resource to tackle these real and current issues.”

The Wise Place community room is officially open, and it serves as a perfect example of the ways in which all members of the real estate community can aid in creating more transitional housing for the homeless—whether in development, finance or design. RDC approached this project like it would any other space, and as a result, the final project, which held it’s grand opening last week, was well received by the community and Wise Place. “We have a lot of tools to paint the pictures, and Wise Place was amazed at how much was delivered from what was shown in the initial renderings and views,” says Lopez. “It really felt like what was presented, and that was a proud piece for us. It wasn’t separate from any other project that we have, and that was a point of pride. It was really validating for us that we were successful of those goals.”