Based on the observation that air travel cost incurred by a refugee family is often higher than the average property values in East Buffalo, this project proposed a wealth building network through home ownership and business incubation. Starting with a careful survey of the district for vacant, foreclosed, and dilapidated properties, the project catalogued cost-effective renovation methods using cooperative networks. Building on an existing urban farming program and successful schemes, resettled and low-income families would become shareholders in several urban farms while rejuvenating an existing but underused wholesale market building as a major community asset.

Seemingly stable urban-ethnic identities are often malleable, and could evolve over time toward rich and more culturally hybrid neighborhoods. Focusing on a secondary street, Paderewski Drive, housing several educational, social, and commercial assets, this project proposes to retrofit and complete a historically Polish-American neighborhood inundated with vacant lots and dilapidated properties. By relying on an existing resilient housing typologies and intelligently reconfiguring the lot orientations, these simple modular dwellings provide well-calibrated urban relationships to create new conditions of frontage, programmatic richness, and an improved streetscape.

Given the continued influx of refugees to Buffalo, the resettlement agencies need to expand in capacity. As such, this group proposed a transitional housing development with embedded amenities, in which the refugees and homeless individuals could be accommodated for up to 90 days. The site is strategically located combining carefully identified affordable lots at an optimum walking distance to many urban assets and existing bus routes. Structurally, the project employs prefabricated building modules, a growing strategic know-how in the region.

This group identified a number of industrial buildings forming a ring around the city connected by an underused freight rail line, called the Beltline. There are long term plans to convert this piece of infrastructure into an effective piece of the transit system. Furthermore, many of these buildings are eligible for historic preservation tax credits, rendering them feasible options for mixed-use developments intended for refugees and low-income groups. By adding austere but carefully designed architectural armatures containing social and commercial programs, this project proposes to mix diverse communities by sharing muchneeded amenities such as day-care facilities, educational programs, and communal kitchens.