Architecture Jury Shortlists UTSA Design Proposal for International Housing Award

Aerial View of Site.

Axonometric View of Modular Systems.

A jury of architects has shortlisted a UTSA Center for Urban and Regional Planning (CURPR) proposal for an international housing award. The Modular Home Annual International Competition Edition 2, sponsored by Buildner, asked participants to submit innovative modular housing proposals for sites around the world.

CURPR’s proposal, led by Center Director Ian Caine in collaboration with landscape and urban designer Gabriel Díaz Montemayor of LABor Studio, is located in the Rio Grande Valley, a transborder region that lies in the floodplain of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River adjacent to the Mexican State of Tamaulipas. The region is home to more than 2,000 colonias–informal, unincorporated settlements that flood regularly and lack civil infrastructure including sewer systems, paved roads, and potable water. In Texas, 400,000 people live in colonias. Many are migrant workers from Northern Mexico who come for seasonal agricultural jobs.

Typical modular housing units are standardized, prefabricated, packed, shipped, and assembled onsite. The CURPR proposal imagines a farming cooperative that extends modular efficiencies beyond housing to the entire site, unitizing the subdivision of land, utilities, flood control, and food production. This vision rejects the adversarial economic, social, and environmental arrangements associated with industrial farming, imagining more sympathetic relations between people, capital, land, and water.

Congratulations to the entire design team, which included Trent Tunks, Joe Valadez, and Tiffany Vargas! The competition jury included Bárbara Bardin, co-Founder of Madrid-based studio Canobardin; Pilar Cano-Lasso, leader of Madrid-based delavegacanolasso; Sarah Broadstock, architect at London-based Studio Bark; Mark Gabbertas of UK-based Gabbertas Studio; Inés Olavarrieta, architect and designer at Madrid-based selgascano.

Ian Caine discusses San Antonio's rapid urban growth with the New York Times

Image: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs | Picryl

One of fastest growing and oldest cities in the United States, San Antonio faces continuous pressure to embrace economic development while preserving culture. The City expects to add one million residents by 2040, yet faces a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Ian Caine recently discussed these issues with the New York Times:

“San Antonio has a wonderfully preserved historic downtown, an historic building stock and the River Walk, and that’s the image the city projects to the world,” said Ian Caine, the director of the Center for Urban and Regional Planning Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “And then on the other hand, it’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., famously bicultural and minority-majority, and one of the most segregated and poor cities in the U.S.”

“As San Antonio moves forward, it’s trying to make sense of these competing histories,” he added.

Much of San Antonio’s recent growth was catalyzed by the Decade of Downtown, a 2010 initiative championed by former Mayor Julián Castro. As the City heads into a new decade, it must confront multiple challenges that come with development, including issues of affordable housing, gentrification, gridlock, and aquifer protection.

Check out the full article below:

UTSA students receive AIA Design Award for Galveston Island proposal

Proposal for eco-hotel on Galveston Island. Image: André Simon and Ivan Ventura

Operable hurricane shutter for eco-hotel on Galveston Island. Image: André Simon and Ivan Ventura

André Simon and Ivan Ventura. Image: UTSA

UTSA architecture students André Simon and Ivan Ventura received a Student Design Award at the November 19 American Institute of Architects San Antonio People + Place Celebration. The winning project, titled Transform for Storm, proposed an eco-hotel for Galveston Island’s Gulf Coast. This barrier island is the site of frequent hurricanes and in 1900 experienced the deadliest storm in U.S. history, a tragic event that killed 8,000 people. The awards jury selected Simon and Ventura’s proposal from a highly competitive field of entries, noting that the “….project sensitively explored the challenges of coastal habitation, offering hope for our shared future.”

The students developed the project in a fall 2018 design studio led by Ian Caine with collaboration from Dr. Hazem Rashed-Ali. This studio explored issues of ecological literacy and resilience through the comprehensive integration of advanced performance metrics and design pedagogy. The studio pursued the topics in parallel while re-examining the oft-misunderstood relationship between architectural sustainability and aesthetics. 

The studio also embraced the goals and methods of the Architecture 2030 Challenge, which commits that all new buildings and major renovations will be carbon-neutral by 2030. In 2016-2017, Architecture 2030 selected this design curriculum for its Pilot Curriculum Project, while Metropolis Magazine profiled it in an article titled The 7 Best Sustainable Design Courses in America.