Disaster Recovery Round Two (DR2)Architecture
Houston, TX
2014 - 2019
As a part of Round 2 of the City of Houston’s Disaster Recovery Program (DR2), the design team, led by [bc] and supported by Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, Unabridged Architecture, and the University of Houston Community Design Resource Center, is working to deliver single family infill home designs. These designs will be used in constructing homes across the six CRA & Outreach Areas. The team is committed to delivering high-quality cost-effective sustainable designs that respect the communities interests and character while offering individual homeowner choice. In order to achieve this, the design team has developed an engagement process involving neighborhood residents, community leaders, and local design architects.
Check out other projects that fall within our sustainABLEhouse Initiative here.
Partners:
Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
Unabridged Architecture
University of Houston Community Design Resource Center
[bc] Contributors:
Omar Hakeem
Elaine Morales
Luis Murillo
Christine Nguyen
Josh Bremer
Sara Gordon
Jonathan Mann
Craig Weflen
Brent Brown
Lisa Neergaard
Jesse Miller
Jennifer Mayfield,
Ann Panopio
Ryan Campbell
April Ward
UPDATES
July 30, 2019
Check out these new homes in the Acres Homes neighborhood in Houston, TX. A continuation of DR2 (Disaster Recovery Round 2), the designs were based on community feedback and feature updates related to resilience — like strong windstorm measures, higher elevations to reduce the risk of flooding, and enhanced accessibility.
Acres Homes Update
September 6, 2018
On September 4, the City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department broke ground on 8 homes in the Acres Homes neighborhood that were designed by [bc] as part of the New Home Development Program. Drawing from the engagement done as a part of the City of Houston's Disaster Recovery Round 2, the designs were updated to improve resiliency and accessibility. [bc] staff were in attendance for the event, in addition to Mayor Sylvester Turner and representatives from HCDD.
New Home Development Program Breaks Ground in Acres Homes
August 28, 2018
Healthy, viable communities rely on strong interpersonal ties at the neighborhood level—and the preservation of affordable housing is crucial to this equation. With that in mind, we are excited to announce a partnership between buildingcommunityWORKSHOP and the City of Houston focused on creating affordable single family homes for sale using lots available from the Houston Land Bank.
Building off of our work with the Disaster Recovery Round 2 (DR2) program, [bc] is partnering with the City to design 18 new, single-family homes in the Acres Homes neighborhood. Through DR2, we had the opportunity to work with local designers in developing a Community Engagement process to set contextual and programmatic design preferences for the targeted neighborhoods and to produce informed schematic home designs, including floor plans and elevations. Taking into consideration lessons learned from our affordable housing projects and the recent changes to the floodplain ordinance in Houston, [bc] worked to adapt the designs to pier and beam foundation as well as to increase their spatial efficiencies. These home designs are based on the feedback received during the DR2 engagement process, individual design meetings with over 300 households, and our recent participation in the Acres Home neighborhood design charrette through the Complete Communities initiative.
A Unique Approach to Housing Affordability
By building on lots owned by the Houston Land Bank, this program establishes a long-term strategy for affordability in the Acres Homes neighborhood. The Houston Land Bank relies on the use of strategic relationships between developers, builders, community organizations, and other stakeholders to stimulate the revitalization of vacant, abandoned, and/or tax foreclosed properties.
Why New Home Development?
The City of Houston’s New Home Development Program concentrates on bringing infill homes built on vacant lots, adding options for healthy affordable housing that increase neighbor proximity and give more families the opportunity to become first-time homebuyers.
Building new homes increases a community’s physical assets, encouraging future development and investment. Furthermore, partnerships between home designers, builders, and community organizations engaged in community revitalization are strengthened when the affordable housing stock is developed.
Here’s the Master Plan for Acres Homes:
Acres Homes: New Home Development Program
January 15, 2017
Disaster Recovery Round 2 has nearly come to an end, over 240 homes have been built to date across 6 neighborhoods throughout the city of Houston. In August the program was extended with an additional 44 homes. [bc] has met with 33 of those homeowners to select their new homes, 21 home designs have been submitted for permit to date.
Disaster Recovery Round 2
February 6, 2015
As a part of Round 2 of the City of Houston’s Disaster Recovery Program (DR2), the design team, led by bcWORKSHOP and supported by Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, Unabridged Architecture, and the University of Houston Community Design Resource Center, is working to deliver single family infill home designs.
The team is committed to delivering high-quality cost-effective sustainable designs that respect the communities interests and character while offering individual homeowner choice through individual design meetings. These design meetings allowed each family to further customize their chosen design from the Home Design Catalogue in order to ensure it fit their needs and site constrains for construction.
You can also download our DR2 Design Guidebook to find out more about the six neighborhoods involved in this process.
DR2 Design Meetings and Construction
March 3, 2014
16 Preliminary home design boards were displayed for community review and feedback on Thursday, February 27th. The designs presented were a result of the collaborative design process between the project team, local design architects, community participants, residents and DR2 applicants from the CRA and Outreach Neighborhoods; Acres Homes, Independence Heights, Near Northside, Fifth Ward, OST/ South Union, and Sunnyside. To view the designs, and learn more about the project, visit: dr2homedesign.org
Design Gallery
February 16, 2014
On February 13th, the design team welcomed neighborhood residents, community leaders, and local design architects to the Community Focus Group held in the Community Room and the Jayne Junkin’s Memorial Room at the Texas Organizing Project office in Houston. The focus groups reviewed preliminary schematic home designs. Participants spoke one-on-one with the local architects on each of over 30 designs that were presented to address comments, questions and concerns. Participant input informed the development of schematic home designs presented in the Gallery Show on February 27, 2014.
More information about this program can also be found at the Disaster Recovery Round 2 project website. You can now download our DR2 Design Guidebook to find out more about the six neighborhoods involved in this process.
DR2 Housing Design Focus Group
On February 1st, the project team welcomed neighborhood residents, community leaders, local design architects, and city staff to Houston Housing Authority’s Neighborhood Resource Center, where they worked together to advance the housing interests of the six target communities. Over 50 participants were in attendance.
The Community Design Workshop used activities to document contextual and programmatic design preferences for Community Revitalization Areas (CRA) & Outreach Areas, and will inform schematic home designs, including floor plans and elevations. Participants at the Community Design Workshop were divided into six groups, based on CRA & Outreach Area neighborhoods (Acre Homes, Independence Heights, Near Northside, Fifth Ward, OST/South Union, and Sunnyside). Each participant was encouraged to share and debate ideas with the assumption that all ideas were welcomed.
Context - Participants identified neighborhood priorities in the following design categories - building performance, foundation, driveway, roof, porch, texture, doors, windows, and window details. Using a blackjack style card game, complete with a “wild card” option, participants drew their preferred building component and debated each option with their group.
Home Design - Participants diagramed their existing home and site layout, then designed their model home to accommodate their family’s needs, indicating programmatic adjacencies and areas of most importance within the home.
Conclusions - Each CRA & Outreach Area shared highlights from their group sessions which included three things about their neighborhood’s context and three things about their home designs to the entire Community Design Workshop group.
More information about this program can also be found at the Disaster Recovery Round 2 project website. You can now download our DR2 Design Guidebook to find out more about the six neighborhoods involved in this process.
Future events will include a follow up focus group, hosted by the project team and local design architects; and a home design Gallery Show on February 27th to present design ideas generated during the February 1st Community Design Workshop for selection.
DR2 Community Design Workshop
February 6, 2014
January 16, 2014
Now in it's 6th year, bcWORKSHOP is expanding again, this time to Houston, Texas. We are still getting our feet wet down here, but we’ve already started to connect with some great organizations and people. Not only are we looking forward to meeting more, we are even more eager to be a part of a community dedicated to bringing great possibilities in this city to fruition. Our first project is a program called Disaster Recovery Round Two (DR2). With the City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department and Texas General Land Office, we are planning to play a key role in rebuilding up to 400 homes in neighborhoods damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Ike in the Fall of 2008. And because this project is our first in Houston, we see this as an opportunity to engage a wide variety of Houstonians on how to approach redevelopment with sensitivity to the local context and existing community.
Along with our project partners, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, unabridged Architects and University of Houston Community Design Resource Center, we are tapping into the expertise of the local architecture community and the residents from six affected neighborhoods: Independence Heights, Acres Homes, Near Northside, Greater Fifth Ward, Old Spanish Trail/South Union and Sunnyside. During a working charrette, which will be held on February 1st, neighborhood leaders, potential residents, the local design architects and the project partners will discover what types of homes people want to see in their communities. The six different groups will share project information, programmatic preferences and contextual design preferences through a series of conversations and design exercises. The information gathered at this event will be highly important for the local design architects to generate preliminary schematic home designs, which will be exhibited in Gallery Show at the end of February. A celebration rather than another working session, the Gallery Show is where the communities can view the different designs, ask questions, debate and vote on their favorites. The designs with the most votes will be made available for selection by residents who are qualified through the DR2 program for construction. Construction is planned to begin in the Summer of 2014.
By bringing a diversity of community residents, design professionals and stakeholders together in the design process, we see a chance to produce a wider variety of well considered and energy efficient home designs than typically available in disaster recovery efforts. Utilizing a process where design professionals and clients can share their respective expertise will result in attractive, well functioning and livable homes. We are excited to begin this opportunity to help create homes that engender pride in not just the homeowner, but also in the whole community.
For those interested in this project, and living in the Houston area, please join us at our Gallery Show, scheduled for February 27th! Drop us a line by email at inform@bcworkshop.org, find us on twitter or like our facebook page to hear more details as they come. We would love to meet you and hear what potential you see in this city. We are glad to join in on dreaming about what else Houston can be!