2016 Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design and Planning Competition: Monteria Village, Santa Barbara, California

Regina Gray, compiler
Social science analyst, Affordable Housing Research and Technology Division, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Winning Team: University of Texas at Austin
Brett Clark, Brianna Garner-Frey, Tatum Lau, Megan Recher, and Sarah Simpson

Runner-Up Team: University of Maryland, College Park
Nicole Akpedeye, David Brothman, Robert Grooms, Meghan Leahy, and Oluwatobi Thomas

The Jury
Eliza Edelsberg Datta, James Bowman, Anne Torney, Thomas Vaccaro, and Michael Ruane

Concluding Remarks: What Constitutes Innovative Design?
Bill Zoeller, registered architect, Steven Winter Associates

Affordable Design
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sponsors or cosponsors three annual competitions for innovation in affordable design. This Cityscape department reports on the competitions and their winners. Each competition seeks to identify and develop new, forward-looking planning and design solutions for expanding or preserving affordable housing. Professional jurors determine the outcome of these competitions.

The Innovation in Affordable Housing (IAH) Student Design and Planning Competition, now entering its fourth year of competition, invites teams of graduate students from multiple disciplines to submit plans in response to an affordable housing design issue of an existing home or residential building. The goals of the competition are to encourage research and innovation in high-quality affordable housing that strengthens the social and physical fabric of low- and moderate-income communities and to foster crosscutting teamwork within the design and community development process. This article includes notes about the challenges, solutions, and lessons learned by the first- and second-place student teams in 2016; the thoughts of the jury regarding how to recognize innovation in housing design; and the thoughts of an architect who helped the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) structure the competition on the definition of innovation in affordable design and its importance.