For many people, especially international students, college is the first home away from home. Leaving behind your family, friends, hometown, even familiar foods can be hard. Interestingly, this effect often recurs later in life; our senior housing projects are explicitly designed to counteract similar feelings of social isolation and homesickness. But designing for new social support systems is really only possible by aligning thoughtful design with equally thoughtful programming and planning. When Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, WA, realized that their school needed on-campus student housing, they knew that staying competitive with other community colleges also meant establishing a successful student housing program. They didn’t simply need their first brick-and-mortar student housing, in other words. They needed to cultivate community. Our design concept for Cedar Hall began here.