HARIL PANDYA
Designs must ‘exude affordability’
Young architects don’t always get to do a lot of designing in the early years of their professional lives. That’s why many of them take advantage of various design competitions where they can be more creative.
Now, young architects can participate in a contest that showcases their design skills and gives them a chance to help the community as well. The Young Professional Advisory Council of the Boston Society of Architects is seeking entries for its competition for modern affordable homes.
Participants are being asked to design a home for South Shore Habitat for Humanity. YPAC is seeking entries that demonstrate overall design excellence with environmentally friendly features and designs that use sustainable and cost-effective materials.
“The designer would have to be pretty sensitive and understand that this is a Habitat for Humanity project,” said Haril Pandya, a YPAC member who works for Signature Design in Belmont. The design would have to “exude affordability,” he said.
The competition is open to young architects in Massachusetts who graduated up to 10 years ago. The deadline for all entries is Sept. 6 and winners will be chosen in October and announced at Build Boston, the annual BSA convention and trade show.
The competition is the brainchild of members of YPAC, a BSA group that was started last September to address the concerns of young professionals in the field.
Andrew Wagner, who was YPAC’s professional development administrator, wanted to do a project for the continued development of young designers and considered whether to organize a series of educational courses or create a program where “young architects were giving back to the community.”
‘Build Boston’ Forum
Late last year, Wagner met with South Shore Habitat for Humanity and pitched his idea for a competition for modern affordable homes. At first, the nonprofit group expressed some reservations about the competition because a similar endeavor by another organization had yielded a very expensive design that was unfeasible to build given Habitat for Humanity’s tight budget.
“I think they were tentative about the idea,” acknowledged Wagner, who has since moved to Maine and is working for SMRT Inc. in Portland.
“With this competition, we’re really addressing an area that architects have steered away from,” said Jessica Zlotogura, explaining that architects typically don’t focus on single residence design.
A YPAC member who works for Tsoi/Kobus & Assoc. in Cambrige, Zlotogura said that different teams within architectural offices have already mobilized to enter the competition. In fact, competitions such as this one often open the door for designers to join together and form their own partnerships, according to Zlotogura.
In late June, YPAC sent posters advertising the competition to all the design schools in New England and architectural firms in Greater Boston. The group is currently trying to recruit a panel of judges to review the entries, which will be displayed online. YPAC is hoping that the winning entry can actually be assigned as a pro bono project to a local firm and constructed.
In addition to the competition, YPAC is planning to run a live charette at Build Boston and to conduct a survey of young architects by the end of the year.
