[Scpg] Cradle to Cradle Housing Design Competition

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Roanoke Regional Housing Network

In association with

GreenBlue

American Institute of Architects

Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke Redevelopment Housing Authority, 
Virginia Housing and the Environment Network, Roanoke Regional Home 
Builders Association, AIA Blue Ridge, Habitat for Humanity - Roanoke, 
Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization, Old Southwest 
Incorporated, TBI Family Services, Total Action Against Poverty, Cabell 
Brand Center, Blue Ridge Housing Development Corporation, Community Housing 
Partners, Southface Energy Institute, Environmental Design + Construction 
Magazine, Environmental Building News, Green at Work Magazine, Interiors and 
Sources Magazine, Virginia Housing Development Authority, Virginia 
Community Development Corporation, Southwest Virginia Chapter of the United 
States Green Building Council,
  and City of Roanoke, Virginia
Presents
C2C Home

The First International Cradle to Cradle Housing Design and Construction 
Competition offers our first opportunity to strive together with our peers 
around the world in the design and construction industries toward 
excellence in building the highest quality affordable and market rate 
housing designs for a local community.  The designs are to be developed 
around the principles and framework described in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking 
the Way We Make Things by William McDonough FAIA and Michael Braungart 
(<http://www.greenblue.org/>http://www.greenblue.org/).

Our first in the anticipated series of nationwide and international 
implementation markets will be Roanoke, Virginia, USA (www.roanokegov.com). 
Located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and considered by many to 
be the cultural center of the Appalachian Region of the United States, 
Roanoke is a city whose first golden age occurred during the development of 
the American railroad. With an appetite for a resolution to the challenge 
of rebuilding its neighborhoods with high quality affordable and market 
rate housing designs and construction processes that will respect the 
rights of future generations to pursue their goals, Roanoke looks forward 
to a second golden age realized, in part, through this process of community 
building.

The two part competition will allow students and professionals to compete 
with their peers and offer solutions to the problem of designing buildable 
and sustainable housing.  Winning design teams, representing accredited 
architecture programs from around the world, will be offered paid 
internships and room and board to participate in the process of building 
their designs with the assistance of the local design and construction 
community.  Hosted by local businesses and other organizations and 
institutions, the selected design teams will take up residence in Roanoke, 
Virginia for three months during the summer of 2005.

Professional designers will submit their solutions to be juried 
independently from the student work.  The selected entries from the 
international architecture community will be constructed by the local 
construction community during 2005.  We anticipate building as many as 
thirty of the selected entries.

The designs will serve to increase awareness of the availability and 
limitations of the existing environmentally intelligent technologies and 
strategies for building green, while introducing and implementing new 
concepts for consideration and realization.  The selected designs will 
provide solutions to the issues of context particularly as they relate to 
existing historic homes and neighborhoods.  Several diverse and largely 
prototypical sites in a variety of neighborhoods have been identified 
within the City of Roanoke, Virginia.  Each will pose distinct challenges 
and design opportunities.

Designs will be reviewed by an internationally acclaimed jury to include 
William McDonough, Daniel Libeskind, Alexander Garvin, Sarah Susanka, 
Randall Stout and others.  Building materials will be provided through the 
support of our national corporate sponsors.  The sponsors will 
simultaneously be encouraged to develop new products and manufacturing 
processes also based on Cradle to Cradle.  Following the lead of companies 
such as BASF and Shaw Industries, the suppliers, like the designers, will 
be challenged to offer new solutions to the problem of providing the 
highest quality building materials that are safe, affordable, and 
environmentally sustainable according to the principles described in Cradle 
to Cradle.

An increasing number of our local contractors and development groups have 
already expressed an interest in building houses generated from this 
exciting process.  Based on the model of the traditional American Barn 
Raising, the community will partner with their guests and neighbors to 
bring a transformation to the urban landscape and housing stock within the 
City of Roanoke and enhance the general discourse on our strategies for 
design and construction.

In addition to addressing issues related to excellence in housing design 
and sustainability, a renewed community spirit will be a natural and 
anticipated outgrowth of this effort.  Partnerships between and among 
community groups, businesses, residents, designers, contractors, 
environmentalists, community service providers, and government officials 
will yield the greatly increased sense of community.

Work that begins in Roanoke, Virginia in 2004 and 2005 will be refined and 
adapted for implementation for other markets in an effort to address issues 
considered to be specific to each of these future project 
locations.  Anticipating that cities throughout the country and ultimately 
around the world will understand the value of this effort and look to host 
the event in subsequent years, we will consider the project in Roanoke to 
be the first in a series of such efforts.

For more information go to 
<http://www.c2c-home.org/>http://www.c2c-home.org/  or send questions to 
<mailto:info at c2c-home.org>info at c2c-home.org

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