This past week students finished their root-causes of homelessness workshop and started creating their teams. In lecture we looked at lots of interesting examples of affordable housing, some more extreme than others, and a project overview was given:
In 24 teams of ~28 students, students are designing affordable housing that is structurally sound, sustainable, cost-effective, aesthetically pleasing, functional, meets a variety of client's needs and has community input. The 28-student team will be subdivided into roughly 4-person groups. Each group will cover one of the following aspects: project management, urban planning, sustainability, interior design, building, costing, and architecture. Effective communication will be key to the success of each group.
As part of this project, community members will be surveyed to consider their needs for potential future affordable housing developments. The surveys will be used to identify specific concerns the community has about affordable housing projects and how these homes/buildings can be better designed to minimize those concerns. Including a community voice in the affordable housing project may help to reduce NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard).
This week students will start researching their respective areas. At the end of each week I will be collecting, summarizing and posting project status reports. This will give all students a chance to see what their colleagues are working on.
Links for images:
http://www.spacebox.nl/index.cfm?lng=en
http://www.containercity.com/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/container-condo-detroit.php
http://canada.archiseek.com/british_columbia/vancouver/lore_krill.html
