Rice Design Alliance announces winners of 99K House Competition

Sustainable and affordable
Rice Design Alliance announces winners of 99K House Competition

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

The Rice Design Alliance (RDA) and American Institute of Architects (AIA) Houston recently selected Hybrid/ORA of Seattle as the winner of the 99K House Competition, which sought to build a sustainable, affordable house that addresses the needs of a low-income family in the Gulf Coast region.

	The Rice Design Alliance and American Institute of Architects Houston recently selected Hybrid/ORA of Seattle as the winner of the 99K House Competition, which sought to build a sustainable, affordable house that addresses the needs of a low-income family in the Gulf Coast region.

The competition aimed to broaden awareness of “green” building strategies applicable to affordable housing, generate and publicize buildable examples of such housing and construct an exemplary prototype. More than 182 teams from 29 states and 16 countries entered the competition.

The winning team designed a house that met the $99,000 budget, maximized green technologies and offered flexible floor plans.

“This design addresses both affordability and the environment through energy savings and offers attractive opportunities for home ownership in the Fifth Ward,” said Bryan Bell Jr., competition juror and founder and executive director of Design Corps. “After we reviewed many energy-saving ideas throughout the competition, the solutions included in this design were well-considered for Houston and will help the owner with each monthly bill.”  

The City of Houston, through the Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority (LARA) initiative, has donated a site for the house located in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward, a residential area east of downtown. Once constructed, the winning house will be sold or auctioned to a low-income family.

Empowering homeowners

The winning design by Hybrid/ORA minimized the amount of resources required to build a home through prefabricated efficiencies, water conservation and sustainable materials. 

“Their design strategy was also mindful of interior flexibility and future home additions, which will serve to empower the homeowner to change their home as their lives change,” said Rocio Romero, competition juror and owner and principal of Rocio Romero LLC.

The winning design by Hybrid/ORA minimized the amount of resources required to build a home through prefabricated efficiencies, water conservation and sustainable materials.

The competition, announced in October 2007, called for a single-family house with up to 1,400 square feet, including three bedrooms and one-and-a-half to two bathrooms, to be built for $99,000 or less. Designers and architects were challenged to design a house that has special consideration for affordability, longevity, energy savings and appropriateness for the hot, humid climate of Houston.

“I was very impressed with the level of enthusiasm in Texas among architects, advocates and elected officials in addressing this very challenging social issue,” said Michael Pyatok, competition juror and principal of Pyatok Architects Inc. “It was heartening to see this generation of architects not only absorb many principles of sustainability so naturally into their work, but to also understand the realities of surviving on lower incomes.”

In conjunction with the building of the winning design by Hybrid/ORA, RDA and AIA Houston will host a public exhibition of the top 66 designs, opening Sept. 4 at the Architectural Center Houston, 315 Capitol St. The designs can also be seen online at www.the99khouse.com/finalists.html.

The jury

The competition’s jurors have expertise in design, sustainability, construction of affordable housing and Houston’s Fifth Ward. Jurors are Bell, Romero, Pyatok, Richard Farias, executive director of Tejano Community Center; and David Lake, principal of Lake|Flato Architects.

The competition is supported in part by grants from Houston Endowment Inc. and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This year the RDA celebrates 36 years as a nonprofit, public education outreach program of Rice University’s School of Architecture. RDA is dedicated to the advancement of architecture, urban design and the built environment in the Houston region through educational programs, active programs to initiate physical improvements, and its journal “Cite: The Architecture + Design Review of Houston.”