Member Highlight: SAGE Architectural Alliance
HDC appreciates all the passion, hard work, and dedication our members devote to the affordable housing movement. No single organization could make this impact and secure this progress alone. The collaboration and connection among members is the human energy that works to ensure all people have a safe, healthy, and affordable home. We want to show our appreciation and learn more about our affordable housing community through these member highlights as each member is crucial to achieving the larger vision of this movement. This week our featured member is SAGE Architectural Alliance. Thank you for all the work that you do!
- What excites your team about the work you are doing?
As a multi-cultural, woman-owned firm, we at SAGE are very excited to be offering insightful, innovative responses to affordable housing. We believe racial, religious, and gender equity include an architectural team led by those from within the culture of the community served.
- What is a favorite office anecdote?
At a senior housing project, residents described the relief and gratitude they had having a safe place to live. One woman described what it meant to her that anyone would care enough to build something for the elderly that made her feel honored and remembered. She said she especially liked the commons area that referenced that atmosphere of a bistro-café. She said she couldn’t get out to meet friends, but the commons area gave her the opportunity to feel like she was still her old self, seeing friends for coffee.
- What upcoming projects, partnerships, and news are you looking forward to?
We are very excited to be working on a new model of care for the developmentally disabled population that are aging and need nursing care. Visioning workshops and stakeholder meetings have yielded a model that is home-like, affordable and operationally efficient. We are also very excited about other ongoing projects including micro-apartments, work force housing projects, homeless youth housing, community-based 16-bed behavioral health enhanced supportive housing, and senior housing renovations. We are excited to bring quality housing and supportive services to vulnerable populations serving homeless youth, veterans, elderly, immigrant refugees and those chronically homeless. Our passion and strength is for building strong communities designed for social connection and wellness.
- What have you been most proud of during your time as an HDC member?
We are proud of being early advocates for supportive housing, attending national conferences and hearing early results of supported housing studies in New York, we advocated for services to break the cycle of homelessness.
We are proud of our long-term advocacy for senior housing needing supportive services to age in place (and in community). We have been long-time participants in the Senior Affinity Group, including the role of co-chair. As experts in licensed senior care as well as affordable senior housing, we attend national senior housing conferences and follow innovative senior housing practices from across the country. Now we can see that memory care will become an emerging issue in senior affordable housing. With the population aging and half of 80-year-olds having significant dementia, we should be organizing spaces and programs to keep seniors independent.
We have been long-term advocates for innovation in energy and construction technology. We were participants in the Housing Washington first “Biggest Bang for the Buck” and contributing participants HDC committees tracking practice design solutions. The firm is certified as a Passive House Consultant and we have several Netzero projects underway.
