Housing Heuristics

Development Heuristics for Affordable Housing was a partnership with a local non-profit development corporation (LA Housing Lab), the School of Architecture’s Sustainable Development Lab (SDLab) and the University’s chapter of the National Organization of Minority Students (NOMAS). Collaboratively these groups developed a graphically accessible booklet designed to guide students into the process of working with a team that is pursing funding for a project. The draft booklet describes a series of best practice heuristics and processes through a range of topics related to the development of affordable housing. The graphically accessible descriptions cover the key steps in beginning an affordable housing project and as well as a range of related topics including definitions, heuristics, precedents and zoning, and density principles. It is meant to be a resource for future students to use while working on actual affordable housing development projects in collaboration with the LA Housing Lab and the SDLab.