The International Architecture Design Competition | Carbon Positive Affordable Housing

The International Architecture Design Competition | Carbon Positive Affordable Housing

Buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. From houses and hospitals to schools and offices, buildings in the United States use about 40 percent of the country’s energy for heating, cooling, lighting, and other operations. It is estimated that the manufacture, transport, and assembly of building materials such as wood, concrete, and steel account for another eight percent of energy use. About 30 percent of the electricity buildings use is generated from coal-burning power plants, which release greenhouse gases, causing climate change.

The landmark IPCC 2021 report warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. The report “is a code red for humanity,” says the UN chief, but scientists say a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast. The total cost of natural disaster damages neared $50 billion in September 2020 in the United States alone, already surpassing the total cost for all of 2019. One-third of all homes in the US are considered at high risk of a natural disaster, resulting in many homeowners bearing the brunt of costly repairs.

As climate change intensifies, housing stability will be increasingly under threat. Housing is the one of the most significant determinants of financial security and generational wealth in the US. Housing is also the largest expense for families, as more than 38 million US households live in housing that is not affordable to them. Similar trends can be seen across Europe. Unaffordable and insecure housing leaves families less able to cope with unexpected expenses such as extensive repairs or rebuilding from flooding or wildfires. Both the frequency and reoccurrence of climate-related disasters have exacerbated affordable housing crises in areas prone to disasters. Without significant intervention, areas prone to climate-related disasters will continue to face housing instability.

Entrants are encouraged to select sites that are typical “types” to ensure solutions can be broadly applied to a particular context to address the challenge of affordable housing and climate change.

The intent of this competition is to solicit design ideas for affordable, carbon positive housing. Designers should consider replicability of their approach in multiple neighborhoods, cities, and/or countries. Program size could range from a micro-home to a tall building depending on the select context or solution. There are no restrictions in regard to program or size. Participants are encouraged to look beyond conventional solutions and consider resiliency in strategies as well.

JUDGING CRITERIA
Entries will be evaluated on the following criteria:
Innovation
Design
Communication
Repeatability
Sustainability
The jury will be using a 50 Point rating system. The top entries will be tallied in real time in the Jury meeting. Top 3 Honorable Mentions will be eligible for mention in Archdaily.

THE JURY

-RANDY DEUTSCH
Randy Deutsch FAIA, LEED AP is an educator, author, international keynote speaker, AI researcher and a licensed architect having designed +100 large, complex sustainable projects for which he received the AIA Young Architect Award Chicago. Since 2011 Randy has authored six books, most recently Convergence: The Redesign of Design (AD, 2017); Superusers: Design Technology Specialists and the Future of Practice (Routledge, 2019), Think Like An Architect: How to develop critical, creative and collaborative problem-solving skills (RIBA, 2020) and Adapt As an Architect: A Midcareer Compass (RIBA, 2021.) In addition to teaching at University of Illinois at Chicago starting in 2001 and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign starting in 2012, until 2019 Randy served as Associate Director for Graduate Studies in the School of Architecture. Randy previously served on AIA Chicago Board as Director and Vice President; on ARCHITECT Magazine’s 2018 R+D jury; and led an annual Executive Education program at Harvard GSD. In 2020, Randy is part of a team that received an NSF Grant and DPI Seed Grant for planning a first-of-its-kind institute for the application of AI in design, construction and operations of buildings and infrastructure. In 2020 Randy was elevated to Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

-SANFORD KWINTER
Sanford Kwinter is a Canadian-born, New York-based writer and architectural theorist, and a co-founder of Zone Books publishers. Kwinter currently serves as Professor of Theory and Criticism at the Pratt Institute. He formerly served as an associate professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and has also taught at MIT, Columbia University and Cornell University and at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Having received a doctorate in comparative literature from Columbia University, Kwinter lectured at Harvard University, the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien), the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Architectural Association in London and the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Over the past twenty years, his publications have pioneered new ideas in art, architecture, science, and the humanities. He has written widely on philosophical issues related to design, architecture, and urbanism, and was involved in the series of conferences and publications convened by ANY magazine between 1991 and 2000.

-RALPH RAYMOND
Ralph Raymond, Haitian-born architect, is an advocate of the profession and admirer of technical expertise. He has held several service and leadership roles in NOMA, AIA, NCARB and ACE Mentor Program in the Atlanta, Georgia area and beyond. Ralph is an associate at HOK’s Atlanta office and has worked on diverse projects such as Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Porsche Cars North America, Solis Hotel Two Porsche, Center for Civil & Human Rights, Emory Health Sciences & Research Building, Grady Center for Advanced Surgical Services (CASS), AstraZeneca Cell Therapy Lab, and several others. At HOK, he is also an emerging leader on HOK’s worldwide Technical Board. Ralph has written articles for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, AIA GA Citizen Architect, and AIA Atlanta Design Equilibrium on design, community service and diversity.
Ralph has been a proponent of early outreach by spearheading and participating in programs such as ‘Discover Architecture’, NOMA’s ‘Project Pipeline”, ACE Mentor Program, AIA Atlanta’s High School Design Competitions, and countless career fairs. He holds both a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Master of Architecture degree from The Georgia Institute of Technology. Ralph is the 2019 recipient of the John A. Busby Jr. Young Architect Medal from AIA Atlanta. As an emerging professional, he is interested in absorbing all portions of the architectural practice, but mainly intrigued with detailing and exterior envelope.

-DORA EPSTEIN JONES
Dora Epstein Jones, Ph.D., is a theorist and teacher of architectural culture. Her work mainly focuses on the discipline of architecture, and includes interrogations on the discipline’s boundaries and operations through examinations of tectonics, practice and pedagogy, as well as (generally external) concerns such as gender, sex, mobility and criticality. She has published in Log, Arch’it, ArcCa and ACSA, edited the Zago/OfficedA installation book, Mechudzu: New Rhetorics for Architecture, Log 31: New Ancients, as well as written essays for publications by J,P:A, Office dA, SCI-Arc’s OnRamp, UCLA Architecture and anthologies on gender and sex in architecture.
Epstein Jones holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism and an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA. She is a past research fellow of the Luce Foundation, the UC Regents, the Getty Research Institute and the AIA. Ms. Epstein Jones has been a long-time collaborator with Jones, Partners: Architecture, and has curated a number of exhibitions of art practices by architects. As a historian and theorist, she is uniquely tuned to design practices, and has served as a visiting critic and lecturer at Harvard, MIT, University of Michigan, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley and the Ohio State University.

-M. CASEY REHM
M. Casey Rehm is a multidisciplinary designer and founding partner in Studio Kinch, in Los Angeles, CA. He teaches at The Southern California Institute of Architecture where he is the coordinator for the Masters of Science in Architectural Technology post-graduate program. He is also the faculty director of SCI-Arc’s Platforms and Automation Laboratory. He received his BARCH from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 and his MSAAD from Columbia University in 2009. He has professional experience working in offices in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and London on a range of projects from low-income residential to large cultural projects. He has a specific focus on the application of synthetic intelligence and automation applied to design.