Philip Bess, director of the graduate program in

Philip Bess, director of the graduate program in architecture at Notre Dame, led a March charrette aimed at planning a mixture of market-rate and “special needs” housing in the sprawling, lightly populated town of Wasilla, Alaska, in the Matanuska Valley north of Anchorage. Valley Regional Services, a nonprofit community development corporation staffed largely by people from local churches, hopes to produce about 120 units of housing for market- rate occupants, adults with Down’s Syndrome, and individuals with chronic mental illness — all on 7.5 acres that would help create a more walkable neighborhood. The eight-member charrette team included Douglas Duany and Peter Swift.