The Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) was recently honored by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) as a winner of the 2018-2019 Collaborative Practice Award for the project HOME RE_CONSIDERED : HOME RE_DEFINED. This is the 13th award UDBS has earned in its 10-year history. The awards will be presented during the celebration on Friday, March 29 as part of the 107th ACSA Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh from March 28-30, 2019.
Each year the ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, service, and best practices in school-based community outreach programs through its Architectural Education Awards program. Award winners inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base, and extend their work beyond the borders of academy into practice and the public sector. Learn more about the winning submissions on the ACSA website.
This award, now added to the numerous honors UDBS has earned over the past decade, is a testament to the significant skill, dedication, and talent of the students at SoA and reflects on the contributions of funders, stakeholders, consultants, faculty mentors, and institutions that support these students and projects. This past fall the UDBS also received two awards from AIA Pittsburgh during the annual Design Pittsburgh 2018 event.
The HOME RE_CONSIDERED : HOME RE_DEFINED studio sequence offered over the course of a single year focused on housing design and housing implementation strategies that can be employed at scale to deconcentrate poverty. Collaborating with community residents, a non-profit 510c3 Community Development Organization (CDO), a material repurposing center, and job-skill training organization, the vertically-integrated interdisciplinary studio investigated mechanisms for increasing public knowledge about regionally-specific housing-related issues and developing scenarios for mixed-income development. The objective for the studio was to design a viable single-family infill housing prototype (RE_CON 01) and development strategies for site utilization that can promote inclusive, mixed-income development in urbanized areas where gentrification threatens displacement of low-income residents. Learn more about the project on the ACSA website.