As Crest Apartments in Van Nuys, California, neared completion, this glowing-white, crisp-lined building-with its gently arcing cluster of volumes-began to attract inquiries from market-rate renters. But, as those aspiring tenants soon learned, this was actually permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless men and women. Crest's owner-developer, the Skid Row Housing Trust (SRHT), has always considered innovative, high-quality design fundamental to its philosophy and goal of creating places of pride for both its residents and their neighbors. "Yet, interestingly enough, this had one of the tightest budgets of the four residential projects we've done for the Trust," says architect Michael Maltzan. "Clearly, we had to be inventive with modest means, but I also think people were responding to an underlying familiarity-to a familiar approach reinterpreted."
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