The Sisters of St. Francis aren’t getting any younger. The Colorado-based group of nuns found it increasingly difficult to go up and down the stairs of their aging and outsized convent in Denver, so they hired a designer and builder to create a campus of modular homes (rendering above) in which the sisters could live and carry out their holy work.

According to Fast Company magazine, the Sisters of St. Francis are self-described “green nuns” – a rapidly growing sector of the sisterhood who believe that ecology and spirituality are inextricably linked. That’s one of the reasons they chose modular as their construction method of choice and why the 16 homes are designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

The project is called Aria Denver and includes, in addition to the nuns’ residences, 160 homes, 110 rental apartments, and 80,000 square feet of retail and office space. Designer Michelle Kaufmann offers some details on her blog, including her admission to being a “junky” when it comes to watching the modular process in action.

“It never ceases to be thrilling seeing the modules get set,” said Kaufmann on her blog. “Especially when they make it look so easy, when I know first hand that it is anything but easy.”

Amen to that.