Orchard Downs, designed by Hays + Ewing Design Studio in collaboration with the landscape design firm Nelson-Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, is a developer-led competition for a new 160-acre community for the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and will include a range of housing types for graduate students, professors and seniors, retail space, and a community center, in a garden setting.

Amenities include walking and biking paths, neighborhood shops, a community center, outdoor sport fields and a farmer’s market. Environmental strategies encompass rain gardens, energy generation and energy conservation strategies such as optimized thermal envelope design and passive solar building orientation.

• Honor Award, Central Virginia AIA 2008