The HOME House Project
What is the HOME House Project, the future of affordable housing?
The HOME House Project is an innovative multi-year initiative created by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA). It represents a revolutionary shift in SECCA' s long-standing Artist and the Community series by addressing the idea of community in a national, and perhaps global, sense. With the HOME House Project, SECCA challenged designers and architects to propose new designs for single family housing for low-and moderate-income families using Habitat for Humanity's basic three-and-four bedroom house as a point of departure. In addition, the design criteria included environmentally-friendly and sustainable materials, technologies, and methods. The response we received was overwhelming as more than 440 individuals and teams from the United States, Italy, England, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, and Russia, sent proposals (from the more than 800 that registered).
Our goals for the project are the following:
- to provide inspired design in the affordable housing market for those who historically have been omitted from enjoying its benefits;
- to establish a new national housing model in terms of design, energy efficiency, environmental consciousness, and cost effectiveness that can change the stigma attached to affordable housing throughout the United States;
- to showcase the most recent advances in sustainable design and
- to foster new partnerships with people, organizations and communities across the United States involved in the creative applications of affordable design.
Our idea is to create a model program that once it begins to germinate, will continue to grow, develop, and multiply. Read more here.
Click here to hear a four-minute MP3 about SECCA's HOME House Project produced by National Public Radio's Leda Hartman.
Click here for the 25 HOME House Project Award Winners.
The HOME House Project National Tour
SECCA is pleased to announce the continuing national tour of the HOME House Project that began at the University of North Texas Art Gallery at Denton then traveled to the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia; the Neighborhood Housing Services of Asheville in collaboration with the Asheville Art Museum, Green Buildings Council, and others; Baltimore's Center for Visual Art and Culture, University of Maryland, in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, Baltimore chapter, and the Community Design Center; El Paso Museum of Art; Fredrick R. Weisman Art Museum; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Plains Art Museum, Fargo; Cleveland Institute of Art; the New York School of Interior Design; Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings.
If your organization would like to host the exhibition, please contact David J. Brown dbrown@secca.org. For the HOME House Project tour information, exhibition factsheet and checklist, click here.
The HOME House Project Book Is Now Available!!
SECCA has published a 128-page book on this landmark multi-year initiative with essays by HHP jurors Michael Sorkin, Ben Nicholson, Steve Badanes, and HOME House Project director and SECCA Senior Curator David J. Brown. MIT Press is handling its national distribution (contact www.MITpress.mit.edu or call 1-800-405-1619). Copies are also available at SECCA. Cost is $24.95 plus shipping and handling.
Building Plans
SECCA is working with several partners to build the first series of houses. Those partners include the Housing Partnership of Winston Salem/Forsyth County, Forsyth Technical Community College, and Sustainable Housing, L.L.C. headed by Bill Benton and Bud Baker. Together we are gearing to build seven houses in the Holly Avenue neighborhood area of downtown Winston Salem. More news to come…
