This year’s winners for the Sustainable Home: Habitat for Humanity Student Design Competition have been announced. The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture chose five winners, one from each region and an additional prize for the best use of vinyl building materials. The competition asked young professionals to consider building strategies that would advance solutions to poverty with affordable housing that is simple, decent and healthy.
Follow us after the break to view the winning projects.
SOUTH REGION WINNER
Project Title: NOTBLOX® Affordable Housing Project: Assembling Sustainable Communities with Insulating Concrete Forms Faculty Sponsor: Ulrike Heine Student: Nick Barrett and Samuel Pruitt School: Clemson University
The jury called this design handsome and sophisticated and commended it on its demonstration in the ease of its construction. The project also demonstrated many options for the use of vinyl.
WEST REGION WINNER
Project Title: The S House: A Passive House for Calgary Faculty Sponsor: Graham D. Livesey Student: Yiming Su School: University of Calgary
This design caught the jury’s eye for being formally expressive while still remaining simple and straightforward. The form, structure and mechanical features of the building are integrated into a single shell. For example, the louvers also act as a screen along the facade of the building.
CENTRAL REGION WINNER
Project Title: The Sustainable Home Faculty Sponsor: Anthony C. Martinico Student: Agnieszka Wir-Konas School: University of Detroit Mercy
This project demonstrates how a simple plan can produce a project with the potential to transform over time. The space adjusts to become a larger home or a multi-generational living space by exploring modularity and production. The team took consideration in orienting the home in relation to the sun, as well as the use cost-effective manufacturing construction techniques. The green roof offers an inexpensive solution to storm water management and reducing cooling loads in the summer. It also provides an additional outdoor space for the home.The jury commended the design, describing it as a “handsome, visual notion of what a Habitat house could be”.
NORTHEAST REGION WINNER VINYL INSPIRATION AND INNOVATION HONORABLE MENTION
Project Title: One simple structural shape, lightweight highly insulated strong and sustainable Faculty Sponsor: James Cooper Student: Josh Robinson School: Pennsylvania State University
This projected was commended for the lightweight, strong and durable components of the design, as well as the presentation that explicitly described how the project would be constructed. The design looks to the future of modularity in factory components and their application to design. This project was also commended for its use of vinyl as a material rather than a building component in its use as surface and structure blending into one.
BEST USE OF VINYL WINNER Project Title: The Gallery House Faculty Sponsors: Justin Miller and Robert Sproull Jr. Students: Ashley Clark, Peter McInish and Mary Win McCarthy School: Auburn University
This modest proposal creatively used the vinyl as an exterior skin as opposed to using it as vinyl siding. The idea of window and skin is integrated in this project, using vinyl as a product of different elements that can be applied to different uses. The specified use of the material demonstrated the practicality of making a house affordable and simple.
