Resilient Homes Design Challenge

Resilient Homes Design Challenge now is over!

Resilient Homes Design Challenge, an architecture competition recently announced by World Bank, Build Academy, Airbnb and GFDRR calling upon architects around the world to develop designs for resilient, modular and affordable homes.

About Competition

The World Bank, Build Academy, Airbnb and GFDRR have launched the Resilient Homes Design Challenge.
This architecture competition aims to challenge entrants to generate designs for cost-effective, sustainable, small homes for people living in underdeveloped areas that both reduce the risk of damage and enable rapid reconstruction following a natural disaster.

Natural disasters are on the rise. Since 1990, natural disasters have affected on average 217 million people every single year. Hundreds of floods, storms, heat waves and droughts have left about 606,000 people dead and 4.1 billion injured or homeless around the world since 1995. And it is often the poorest that suffer the most from these shocks.

As architects and engineers, we can design resilient and sustainable houses that both reduce the risk of damage and enable rapid reconstruction following a disaster.

The competition calls for designing a modular house costing under $10,000 that should be easy to build.

The challenge has been designed for three scenarios:

• Earthquakes & tropical storms on islands;
• Earthquakes & landslides in mountain & inland areas;
• Tropical storms & floods in coastal areas.

Design teams can submit designs for a single scenario or all three scenarios depending on their preference.

Guidelines:

Design teams are encouraged to look beyond “fully pre-fabricated” housing designs in order to allow incorporating local building materials and techniques into their designs. Designs could be fully, partially or not prefabricated with a clear aim towards ease of construction.

• Designs incorporate climatic conditions
• Integration of storage tank for rainwater collection is preferred
• Toilets should be environmentally friendly, attached or detached
• Housing material should be fireproof/treatable to be fireproof
• Project construction cost should be limited to $10,000

Participants are encouraged to respect the building codes of the countries they are designing for.
The Jury is mindful of different regions/countries having different costs associated with construction and teams will not be penalized for not having “exact costs”. Teams have the freedom to justify their cost assumptions in the final proposal.

Suggested dimensions:

• AREA: The houses should accommodate a family of 4-5 people in about 40-50m2.
• KITCHEN: 8-12m2, storage and cooking space
• BATHROOM & TOILET: 5-8m2 (combined or separate)
• BEDROOM: 12-15m2; storage space 1-2m2
• MAINROOM: 20m2, could be used as a bedroom at night
• MINIMAL HEIGHT: 2.5m

Challenge participants will apply their skills and knowledge to design of resilient architecture and how it can be implemented both in rural and urban settings. They will have the opportunity to improve their design and collaboration skills, working with a global community of professionals from all over the world, and receiving feedback from professors and experts. The work will be done by teams formed by independent practitioners who will work together on developing integral projects that include aspects of architectural design, structural engineering, building technology, social space, community development, economic feasibility, sustainability, and resilience.

A highly reputable Jury will select and announce the winners on December 14th, 2018.

Evaluation criteria:

• Resilience (25%)
• Design (20%)
• Cost Effectiveness (15%)
• Construction (15%)
• Sustainability (15%)
• Presentation (10%)

Winning designs will be published and winners will be invited to exhibit at the World Bank in Washington DC, USA and other select global venues.

There is no entry fee to participate!

Eligibility

This architecture competition is open to all architect or civil engineer around the world.