Sometimes, all it takes for an architecture firm to find its calling is a single, exceptional project. That's true for San Francisco-based Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects (LMS), winner of the 2017 Architecture Firm Award. Soon after principals William Leddy, FAIA, Marsha Maytum, FAIA, and Richard Stacy, FAIA, founded LMS in 2000, they were commissioned to design a building for the formerly homeless in San Francisco's gritty Skid Row neighborhood. The nine-story Plaza Apartments helped shatter the convention that affordable housing has to be ugly or blandly institutional. The LEED Silver-certified building is constructed of concrete, but LMS added sunshades and multicolored wood panels to "soften the look," Stacy says. As the project was nearing completion, Leddy recalls, he and his colleagues began getting phone calls from commercial real estate brokers asking how much the "cool condos" on Howard Street would be listed for. "We'd say, 'Those aren't condos. That's housing for the homeless.' The response was usually, 'Are you kidding?'"
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