The design plan for Primera Terra was forced to change with the times, and now that change has gotten a major stamp of approval.

The 52-unit luxury-condo development in Playa Vista, Calif., won National Association of Home Builders’ 2012 Best in American Living Award Platinum in the category of Neighborhood Design.

Alan Scales, studio director for architects and planners KTGY Group Inc. and project director for Primera Terra, told Multihousing News that "a big part of our efforts were going into downsizing a project that was designed somewhere around 2006. We were really looking, from an economic standpoint, at how to most efficiently downsize but retain livability to the home.”