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The Lawndale site has a strong presence of community; people were found in social clusters either on the front porch or groups of children playing. To provide an opportunity for the continuation of social gathering and interaction, we created outdoor courtyard spaces that could be shared by small groups of units. 

The second key element was the organizational strategy of the site. The site is structured by a progression of private to public spaces surrounding the buildings. The more public spaces consist of the laneway and the streets and the more private spaces lie within the courtyards. The low rise buildings are arranged in such a way as to shelter these courtyards to give a sense of enclosure and intimacy without being literal and confining. The same logic is used in the arrangement of the program spaces within the units by placing more public uses such as the living room and kitchen close to the main entry and grouping the more private uses such as the bedrooms together.

Diversity of community was critical for the project. A rich mixture of unit types would ensure that the housing development to cater to a variety of household types. Furthermore, it was also important to mix these units not only within the entire development, but also within each courtyard cluster, as well as each building unit and floor. This then allowed for a culturally diverse neighbourhood, where people of different backgrounds, economic status, and age groups could interact and socialize. Due to the mixture occurring at all levels these interactions can occur on the ground plane (i.e. courtyard spaces or the street) as well as in the elevated pathways that connect each cluster. The number of units that share these pathways as well as the courtyards are minimized to promote familiarity with their neighbours and therefore stronger bonds between them 

The main types of housing units in the lowrise units are studio, 1 bedroom, 1 bedroom duplex, 2 bedroom, and 2 bedroom duplex. In the highrise this diversity is maintained by incorporating different unit types at each floor to mimic the social mixture created in the lowrise culture.