Nearly one billion people are living in impoverished urban communities throughout the world with little or no access to safe and adequate water, sanitation, or shelter. This number is expected to double over the next 30 years. These conditions threaten public health, basic human rights, and environmental sustainability. Habitat 21: the Lyle Center project for sustainable settlements, seeks to address these issues by developing, implementing and evaluating sustainable settlement strategies for disenfranchised communities in lesser-developed nations.
One of their projects is a low cost sustainable housing prototype for Tijuana in collaboration with the Department of Architecture and Corazon, an NGO whose mission is to serve the poor in Mexico. This March the project received top honors from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) who awarded their 2008 Grand Prize for "Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy" to the Department of Architecture in recognition of their contributions to the prototype.
The project features innovative re-use of materials, a papercrete wall system that uses recycled newsprint, a low-cost green roof, passive heating and cooling strategies and a low-energy technique for radiant heating. These innovative approaches show that sustainable design strategies can be incorporated into affordable housing using readily available materials that can be found locally for little or no cost while minimizing the use of non-renewable resources.
The project has been supported by a grant from The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, recieved by Dr. Kyle Brown, Dr. Pablo LaRoche, and Irma Ramirez. Numerous architecture, landscape architecture and regenerative studies students have worked on the project, including Matty West, a Regenerative Studies graduate student who is studying the heating and cooling performance of the building for his thesis.
This effort is an example of what can be achieved through an interdisciplinary, learn-by-doing approach that seeks not only to educate students and the community at large but also to begin to solve some of the most immediate and difficult global issues that are challenging us today.
The prototype is being constructed at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies. Visitors are welcome to view the house. Below are some photos. Go to this site to see more.
