The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has announced the winners of The Sustainable Home: Habitat for Humanity Student Design Competition for the 2011-2012 academic year. It has chosed 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.
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
Jury Comments: The project demonstrates ease of constructability in a very handsome and sophisticated design. The composition of the boards and the presentation as a whole were strong, offering a lot of information without being overwhelming, and gives the sense of the spirit of the place. The design offers many great options for using 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
Jury Comments: The design is captivating and expressive, while still remaining simple and straightforward. In a straightforward way, the final form of building and structure and mechanical issues are fused. All the systems are integrated into the single shell, and the louvers act as part of same system acting as a screen. If Habitat were to build this house, it would likely be the best house in the neighborhood. The presentation offered a photorealistic representation of the spatial context.
CENTRAL REGION WINNER
Project Title: The Sustainable Home
Faculty Sponsor: Anthony C. Martinico
Student: Agnieszka Wir-Konas
School: University of Detroit Mercy
Jury Comments: The jury appreciated the simplicity of the plan, its orientation to the sun, its consideration of cost-effective manufacturing construction techniques and its ability to grow and transform over time, to become a larger home or a multi-generational living space. The house has a clear planned diagram and a convincing composition. The design is very handsome, pushing the visual notion of what a Habitat house could be, while exploring modularity and production.
Green Roof: The management of storm water, with underground and invisible systems, is expensive, and a green roof addresses those issues. As we continue to rebuild suburbs and cities, green roofs offer many benefits: managing storm water, tripling the life of roof membrane, reducing cooling in summertime, all while being an occupiable garden. Vinyl plays a role with PVC membrane under the green roof.
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
Jury Comments: This was the most intriguing, dialogue-inspiring presentation. The layout and the graphic presentation as a story-board showed explicitly how the project would be constructed. This house is looking toward the future of modular, or factory built components in terms of being lightweight, strong and durable.
Vinyl: Forward thinking use of vinyl. Innovative project, addressing material nature of vinyl rather than the product, totally unconventional for Habitat. This project is a fantasy, from fiberglass to vinyl. Surface and structure are the same thing. So much information conveyed without words. No real technical information was provided by this team, but their presentation creatively draws the viewer in, to get involved and to make assumptions. This project looked at vinyl as a material.
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
Jury Comments: While a very modest proposal, in another sense it was rather interesting how the design applied the materials on the exterior skin, taking the product and moving it forward as opposed to just using vinyl siding. By integrating the idea of the window and the skin together it made a much richer palette. This project approached vinyl as a product, breaking down all the elements and showed practicality of making house affordable and simple.
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