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11/5/2008

New kid on the block
Ground breaks for sustainable, affordable house in Houston's Fifth Ward

BY KATHRYN FOSDICK
Special to the Rice News

As of last week, there's a new kid on the block in Houston's Fifth Ward. Houston Mayor Bill White joined Linda Sylvan, Rice Design Alliance (RDA) executive director, to break ground on the new house being constructed as part of the 99K House Competition, which seeks to build a sustainable, affordable house that addresses the needs of a low-income family in the Gulf Coast region.

	Ground is broken for the new house being constructed as part of the 99K House Competition, which seeks to build a sustainable, affordable house that addresses the needs of a low-income family in the Gulf Coast region.

Sponsored by RDA and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Houston, the competition 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. The team of Hybrid/ORA of Seattle won the competition, which drew 182 teams from 29 states and 16 countries. The house will be built by D.E. Harvey Builders Inc., which is donating its services as general contractor of the project.

David Harvey, president of the company, said that his firm was looking for a community project to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Many other subcontractors are donating their services, including engineering expertise from Haynes Whaley Associates and Eco-Holdings Structural Engineers.

Once constructed, the 99K house will be sold or auctioned to a low-income family through the Tejano Community Center. The house is located at 4015 Jewel St. on a lot donated by the City of Houston through the Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority (LARA) initiative.

It will serve as a prototype for an affordable, sustainable and energy-efficient house. White said he hopes for the continued building and sale of other affordable houses on the many lots available through the LARA and Houston Hope programs.

Launched in October 2007, the 99K House Competition challenged designers and architects to design a sustainable, affordable house, with special consideration given to longevity, energy-saving benefits and appropriateness for the hot, humid climate of Houston.

Organizers hope the house will help rejuvenate the neighborhood, a goal of the mayor’s Houston Hope program for struggling neighborhoods.

Sponsored by RDA and the American Institute of Architects Houston, the competition 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. The team of Hybrid/ORA of Seattle won the competition, which drew 182 teams from 29 states and 16 countries.

This fall, an exhibition of 66 selected entries to the competition was held at the Architecture Center Houston, where local builders and community development corporations met with the architects and designers responsible for the projects and ideas showcased. A catalog that accompanied this exhibition included illustrations of the 66 designs as well as contact information for the architects and designers. It also included an essay by Bryan Bell, founder and executive director of Design Corps, which gave an overview of the competition and discussed how it fits within the larger context of affordable housing.

The catalog sells for $9.99 and is available from RDA, AIA Houston, Brazos Bookstore, and bookstores at the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Menil Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition will travel throughout the U.S.

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

The competition is supported in part by grants from Houston Endowment Inc. and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission for the Arts, the Houston Architecture Foundation and the Houston Arts Alliance. For more information, visit www.the99khouse.com.

This year the RDA celebrates 36 years as a nonprofit, public education outreach program of the School of Architecture at Rice University. 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.

The AIA Houston is the professional society for architects in the Greater Houston area and has more than 1,700 members. It recently moved to downtown Houston in a newly created Architecture Center -- a collaboration with the Houston Architecture Foundation, which gives grants for architecture-related projects and provides educational programming for the Houston community.