Owen Richards of Owen Richards Architects and Robert Humble and Joel Egan of Hybrid, Winners of 99k House competition to design an affordable, sustainable house prototype for the Gulf Coast Region, will discuss their work and answer questions at a brownbag lunch hosted by Seattle DPD and Seattle Great City Initiative.

Five finalists were chosen out of 182 entrants from 29 states and 16 countries. Sponsored by the Rice Design Alliance and AIA Houston, the competition objectives are to broaden awareness of green building strategies and to construct an exemplary, sustainable, affordable house prototype. The Jury included Bryan Bell, David Lake, Michael Pyatok, and Rocio Romero, nationally recognized leaders in sustainable and affordable housing design.   In addition to extensive green building features such as rainwater harvesting and a geothermal mechanical system, the design addresses sustainability on a broader conceptual level, allowing for increased density by placing two houses on one site, accommodating evolving occupant needs, and enabling ease of future conversion to duplex units.  Hybrid/ORA’s design was unique among the finalists in providing a highly flexible plan with compact core and demountable partitions, allowing the house to adapt to the changing needs of its inhabitants.

The finalist designs and additional information are available on the competition website: 

View a recent blog on the project at Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

View more on ORA at www.orarchitects.com, and on HyBrid at www.hybridseattle.com  

View more on Architects Without Borders-Seattle at http://awb-seattle.org/about/