The School of Architecture’s Center for Building Communities (CBC), address architectural and urban design needs around the country. Led by professors Ron Sakal (the CBC executive director) and Sallie Hood (the director of design), the center serves a national constituency, offering design studios focusing on sustainable architecture and urban design. Supported in part by a gift from Champion Enterprises, Inc., a leader in factory-built construction, CBC studios place a special emphasis on modular building technology and the ways it can quickly and dramatically help strengthen communities. “Notre Dame students have an opportunity to apply their talents to real projects for real clients with modest-to-average, rather than extraordinary budgets,” Sakal said. “Modular construction methods allow blighted areas to be rapidly transformed—within one-third to one-half the time of conventional construction—into fully occupied, lively and, with the Notre Dame touch, beautiful places.” CBC studios have focused on urban infill in Elkhart, Indiana and a master plan for the historic downtown of Conway, Arkansas. In conjunction with the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, a CBC studio also developed design solutions for the city’s 90-block downtown Fashion District.