Texas A&M architecture students in Carlos Reimers’ Spring 2007 design studio received awards in a national design competition for sustainable colonia housing in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Placing third in the Casas del Quinto Sol Sustainable Housing Design Competition were students Becky Breffeilh, Elizabeth Kang, Brandon Henderson and Chris Nagelhout.
"Being in the competition really made me excited about working on the project because I knew that, as a student, I might actually have a chance to help impact the lives of a community," said Breffeilh.
Capturing fourth place, honorable metion honors in the New Mexico competition were Tyrone Austin, Ross Charba, Lindsey Smith, Elizabeth Janica, and Brandon.
Along the U.S. side of the United States' long border with Mexico, many thousands of low-income people live in colonias — ramshackle housing developments, many of which have homes that lack basic necessities such as potable water, electricity and sewer systems.
Both student-team designs benefited from input provided early on by staff and faculty from the Center for Housing and Urban Development (CHUD) at the Texas A&M College of Architecture. The center facilitated a fieldtrip to colonias in South Texas, which provided the students with firsthand knowledge of the reality of these communities.
“We were able to talk to some of the residents and coordinators and get firsthand experience of what the colonias are like and how we could improve them," said Breffeilh, who cited the fieldtrip as her “favorite part of the project.”
Oscar Munoz, deputy director of CHUD’s Colonias Program and center staff, including Pete Lara and Sara Buentello, provided the students with a guided tour of the colonias.
Carlos Reimers, assistant lecturer in the Department of Agriculture at Texas A&M University, was one of the department's professors who helped guide the students through the project.
The third place students “put together a thoughtful design that reinterpreted the traditional cultural response to climate and site,” said Reimers, the studio director. Their entry “integrated local housing practices and materials, sustainability and energy conservation concepts, as well as the housing knowledge derived from their research in the Texas colonias."
Other Texas A&M College of Architecture professors who guided the student teams were Charles Culp, Robin Abrams and Jorge Vanegas.
Reimers said he was especially proud of how well the Texas A&M undergraduate students fared against the competition.
"Considering that the first prize was awarded to a team of graduate students, I believe that our junior students did a great job earning third- and fourth-place (entries) in a national design competition," he said.
A typical colonia family is young, with a yearly income of about $10,000 and two to three children, according to Texas government statistics posted online. The third place Aggie team recognized the financial situations of these families in creating a design that emphasized incremental building, with an initial stage that features an open-concept kitchen, living and dining room, one-and-a-half bathrooms and one bedroom in 850 square feet of living space.
As a family's size and income grows, the home can be enlarged in three more phases to a maximum of four bedrooms, consisting of up to 1,516 square feet.
"It needed to be an affordable housing unit that had plenty of potential to grow in the future depending on the residents' need," said Elizabeth Kang, a member of the winning team. "Therefore it had to be a design that is flexible."
Because many colonias lack running water, the students included rainwater harvesting in the home's design, with gently slanted roofs allowing rain to collect in cisterns for storage. As an added bonus, the cistern are a focal point in the home's design.
It's a hot climate along most of the U.S. Mexico border, but air conditioning for many colonia residents is not an affordable option. The team's home design addressed this issue by using natural ventilation; the home is raised to funnel the wind into the home's courtyard and through the house. The homes are oriented to optimize wind cooling.
“Overall, I am happy to have had an opportunity to experience a contest like this and to make friends with the people in my group whom I had never met before,” said Brandon Henderson, another wining team member.
Her teammate, Becky Breffeilh said she liked the idea of her team’s efforts being evaluated outside the university’s environs.
“Just knowing that your work is going to be judged by people other than your peers and professors, and that there is the possibility of your efforts being rewarded, was a great incentive to work your hardest.”
