Fifth Ward

Denver’s JG Johnson Architects describes its entry in the $99K House Competition using 4 terms:

MODULAR: three modules, numerous configurations, structural insulated panels allow flexible opening installation, mass production

ADAPTABLE: responsive to different site orientations, ratios, topographies

INDIVIDUAL: different users, multifunctional spaces, architectural style variations, pride in ownership supports demographically diverse neighborhoods

ECOLOGICAL (AND ECONOMICAL): ductless climate control system, inclusion of surplus materials, highly insulated, well sealed envelope, minimal built space through inclusion of exterior spaces, glazing orientation, solar shading

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Houston architect Carl Brunsting calls his $99K House Competition entry “A Good House.” He says his

intent was to make an affordable house FOR HOUSTON, that emphasis meaning that the design was about having a sloped roof with overhangs to deal with our sun and 56 inches of rain, but without becoming something like a builder’s pastiche. It is built up off the ground like an old bungalow to keep it dry from flooding and up for privacy from the street and to avoid long-term problems with Houston’s expansive gumbo soil. It has a front porch for a lot of obvious reasons, and the overhangs all around mean that windows and doors won’t leak and you can open a window when it’s raining.

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An eco-minded Houston home for only $99K? Here’s a shot at it . . . all the way from Muncie, Indiana. Michael Gibson, who teaches at Ball State’s College of Architecture and Planning there and is also a research fellow at the university’s Institute for Digital Fabrication, sent in this design:

The ShotFrame House is an updated version of the traditional “shotgun” house that is frequently seen in Houston and other areas of the southern US. Shotgun houses are characterized by a series of simple rooms, lined up perfectly on a lot from front to back: providing the advantages of a small, inexpensive footprint which can be easily framed. The ShotFrame House uses a similarly aligned series of views, but improves the shotgun-style building by employing a prefabricated, computer-designed and manufactured framing system. This framing system allows the rooms . . . to expand at points along the length of the house, allowing daylight to penetrate the middle rooms.

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