PHN Presents: 52 New Street
Community, Ambition, and Passive House in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Wednesday, January 7th, 2026, Noon-1PM ET
52 New Street is a 106-unit affordable rental housing development, and the first project permitted under the Cambridge Affordable Housing Overlay. Adopted in October 2020, the 100%-Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) accelerates the creation of permanently affordable homes. It allows for higher density than standard zoning and establishes a streamlined approval process to build housing more quickly and cost-effectively in diverse city areas.
52 New Street is not only the first permitted project but also a demonstration of the possibilities of mission-driven high-performance and design. Hear from Ben Wan of RODE, the project architect, who will outline the constraints, the opportunities, the goals, and the strategies to achieve them, in this ambitious Passive House building – now nearing construction completion. Madeline Lee, of Just A Start, the project developer, will describe how her organization is implementing methods to evaluate the performance of its growing portfolio of PH-certified properties to inform future design decisions.
Learning Objectives
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Outline the goal of the Cambridge Affordable Housing Overlay and how Just A Start and RODE Architects set out to meet it.
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Describe how Passive House goals supported the developer and design priorities of the project in serving the community.
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Outline how programmatic requirements, including Passive House requirements, guided the building design development and implementation.
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Describe how the team’s project delivery process has been informed by the need to hit Passive House benchmarks.
Credit
AIA/PHI – Pending
About the Presenters
Madeline Lee (she/her) manages multifamily affordable housing projects through all stages of development in Cambridge, MA. Before joining Just A Start’s Real Estate team as a Project Manager in 2022, she advanced affordable housing creation at Fenway Forward (formerly Fenway Community Development Corporation) and held roles focused on community engagement and environmental education. Madeline has a Bachelor’s Degree in Architectural Studies and Environmental Studies from Tufts University.
Ben Wan is a principal at the RODE and finds that RODE’s diverse portfolio provides an exciting template for exploring how design can function within the complex layering of urban settings. Since joining the studio in 2010, the work has grown in scale and complexity, but the vision for improving lives through design remains the same. Ben holds a Master of Architecture degree from Northeastern University.
