Rural Studio, A study in affordable housing
Jun 1, 2024
Image credit: Stephen Bisaha / Gulf States Newsroom
This a fascinating story of how design for affordable housing has to go beyond the the conventional understanding of the boundaries of design. There is a backstory to this in that the goal was to design for affordability, and while this was admirably met, that same system given its inherent inflationary tendency made the prices rise over time which reverse impacted the original goal!
This made the design teams conscious on the need to tamp down on that price rises to keep it affordable and consequently had to work with bankers to design policies to meet their goals. Its a stellar example of what can be done with a willingness to engage in diverse domains in order to design!
What architects learned from 30 years of building affordable homes in Alabama’s Black Belt
