THE OPPORTUNITY

PS&S had the privilege to work on a unique development opportunity to design a housing village to serve as a residence for homeless veterans. The goal of this project was to create inviting, efficient, and thoughtfully designed apartments along with a multitude of commonuse spaces to ultimately create an overall empowering community for the Veterans in New Jersey who will be living there.

THE CHALLENGE

The challenge was to create a “village” that would be the home for a multitude of services, including case management, wellness support, workforce, benefits and application assistance, legal services, transportation, telehealth, meals, and other similar support programs. The building design and construction challenges were to create a building that is not only aesthetically pleasing but that also performs extremely efficiently by integrating sustainable and energy friendly elements into the building envelope. An additional challenge for this building was the desire and requirement for a women’s-only section, separated by floor with secure access and common space, and to design and construct it to compliment the building and do so efficiently. The shape of the property and environmental constraints limited the building’s possible configurations, parking, and site access and required much coordination between PS&S Land Development and Building Design groups. The site was fully wooded in the existing condition, so extensive stormwater management was required to meet the town and NJDEP requirements.

THE SOLUTION

The PS&S Design and Engineering Teams worked together with the Winn organization and Soldier On, the service provider, to ensure that the building, property, and essence all fit together to support this community’s future residents. This building will be aesthetically pleasing and energy-efficient for years to come through spatial layout and material selections.