Foreword
Buildner is pleased to present the results to the Las Vegas Affordable Housing Challenge!
This competition is part of Buildner’s Affordable Housing series, in partnership with ARCHHIVE BOOKS, showcasing projects that invent new means for driving down housing prices. Designers were tasked with proposing a flexible, innovative, pilot-phase concept for affordable housing within Greater Las Vegas.
Buildner’s Affordable Housing design series posits that there is no one right answer to making housing affordable. Today, a host of new ideas and platforms are enabling people to own or purchase homes. These creative methods include everything from community co-living facilities, to 3D-printed homes, stackable modular homes, new zoning policies and new forms of transit-oriented development.
In 2017, Las Vegas was revealed to be the least affordable city in the USA for renters, with the biggest shortage of affordable and available rental homes according to figures from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. It was found that Las Vegas only had 12 affordable rental units available for every 100 households classified as “extremely low income.” This situation is untenable.
This competition tasked participants with proposing design-related solutions to the city’s housing crisis. They were encouraged to submit flexible solutions to accommodate a range of unit sizes including families, single professionals, and couples. There was no set competition site or scale, and participants were encouraged to be as creative as possible. The jury sought projects that challenge typical ideas of housing, design, and the community at large, while at the same time maintaining a practical element that could potentially see these designs realized.
Buildner collaborated with a regional and international interdisciplinary jury panel: Craig Galati is a Principal of Las Vegas*based architecture firm LGA and has received honors including the AIA “Nevada Service Award,” and the American Planning Association “DeBoer Excellence in Planning Award” for his outstanding service on the City of Las Vegas Planning Commission; Avi Friedman is a professor of architecture at McGill University Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and president of Avi Friedman Consultants, a design firm with a focus on affordable and sustainable residential environments; Persis Lam is an associate at Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt Architects as well as executive member of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT); Dr. Steffen Lehmann is a tenured full Professor of Architecture and former Executive Director of schools of architecture, including the UNLV School of Architecture in Las Vegas; Christina Lennox is the Cofounder and Chief Product Officer of Brownstone, a shared housing company which makes sleeping pods that transform existing homes into affordable shared living arrangements; Maya Mahgoub-Desai is the Chair of Environmental Design at OCAD University and a practicing Urban Designer and Planner with Moriyama Teshima Architects whose research focuses on public health; Fotini Pitoglou is a licensed architect in Ontario, Canada, the UK and Greece and a lead architect on hospitality projects at Toronto-based FORREC as well as an executive member of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto; Caitlin J. Saladino serves as the Director of Strategic Development at The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West, a public policy think tank focused on improving health, education, economic development, governance, non-profits, and social services in Nevada; and Andreas Tjeldflaat, who is the founder of Framlab, a New York and Bergen-based design studio.
Buildner and its jury panel thank all individuals and teams that submitted proposals.
Enter the next competition edition
Turning unused bridge areas into lively homes
1st Prize Winner
(still) LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS
Architecture competitions of this nature allow anyone to challenge and provide a fresh approach to existing design dogmas. It is an incredible chance to step away from the conventional means of execution and present a different perspective to a broader audience. It helps to facilitate change in the profession through exposure and discussion, as well as one’s own professional growth. Competitions are a great venue for experimentation, and a laboratory to unpack and test design philosophies.
Read full interview
United StatesJury feedback summary
(still) Learning From Las Vegas seeks to counteract current urban models in which large distribution infrastructure utilizes prime real estate within the city’s urban center. It does so by building upon the existing warehouses that proliferate around Las Vegas. The submission’s key proposal is to increase the floor area ratio of underutilized sites as a means to generate density while keeping the existing commercial entities, which fuel the economy, intact. What results is a new residential ‘datum’ that serves as a catalyst for housing that is more affordable. Each massing consists of modular housing units which adapt to the footprint of a site’s existing infrastructure. Perforated facade shelter occupants from the strong sun while providing an advertising surface for companies below.
A thought-provoking proposal that responds to a specific urban challenge of the city and turns it into an asset – as well as an entirely new housing typology. Simple and iconic.
Andreas Tjeldflaat / Buildner guest jury
Founder, Framlab, Norway
Learning from Las Vegas offers a comprehensive understanding of the Las Vegas urban landscape, and proposes a new concept for creating density in urban places often overlooked by developers.
Dr. Caitlin J. Saladino / Buildner guest jury
Director of Strategic Development at The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West, USA
This concept factors in the need to reduce urban sprawl for the sake of affordability and the environment. Utilizing vertical space above warehouses is a practical way to densify the existing city while minimizing land cost, therefore passing cost savings onto the consumer in an effort to create affordability.
Christina Lennox / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer of Brownstone, USA
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe single-sheet presentation communicates a clear story that is dually urban and human in scale as told through its renderings and drawings. The hierarchy and color balance are both strong, using colorful renderings that lead the eye from high-level primary imagery to supporting detailed images. The text, while adequate perhaps for a portfolio to describe the full story to a reader unaware of the project background or purpose, is too lengthy for a single-sheet submission. This could be reduced in length considerably and retain its capacity to describe the project’s ambitions and design. The single axonometric is also overly complex for this type of project, which would benefit moreseo from an enlarged partial section to describe the construction systems that comprise the proposal and design. In the large plan, it is recommended that the author more clearly differentiate one unit from the next, as at this scale the division of units is difficult to comprehend. In general the project would benefit from an enlarged unit plan and section. In the large section, it is unclear why the first floor level is equal in height to those of the residential units above, which is not the case in rendered imagery given that warehouse spaces are significantly taller than residential units. The section would also benefit visually from a thicker ‘ground’ line - as drawn the white rectangle describing the earth is visually weak and difficult for a reader to understand.
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9/10 Linework
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9/10 Quality of drawings
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8/10 Balance of color
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9/10 Layout
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9/10 Hierarchy
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8/10 Annotation
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8/10 Text
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10/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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9/10 Quality of overall presentation
Enter an open architecture competition now
Under Bridge
The Home of Shadows
MICROHOME
Workplace Reimagined
Museum of Emotions
2nd Prize Winner
Common Ground
ChinaJury feedback summary
Common Ground proposes a scheme to transform underused urban spaces within downtown Las Vegas such as parking lots, deserted cinemas and casinos. The ground floor is ‘lifted’ to generate a public layer of community, cultural and commercial spaces supporting the residential program above. A block-sized pilot site was selected on a commercial avenue to make the case for the proposal’s viability as a means to affordability, increased density and urban regeneration. The typical residential unit is designed to offer flexibility and efficiency.
This proposal targets the limited underutilized space within the urban area while suggesting a mixed use development with communal spaces that result in a more compact design.
Fotini Pitoglou / Buildner guest jury
Architect, FORREC, Canada
This proposal addresses entire block sites holistically by understanding the variable nature of human needs
Persis Lam / Buildner guest jury
Associate Architect, Diamond Schmitt Architects, Canada
The proposal offers a sustainable approach to re-use of spaces, and is especially interesting in its mention of deserted cinemas and casinos. An area of improvement would be to develop the design to express and/or use the existing structure or architectural form in order to embrace elements of the typology.
Maya Mahgoub-Desai / Buildner guest jury
Chair of Environmental Design, OCAD University, Canada
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe project is commendable for its thorough communication of a complex problem, its analysis and its proposed solution. The clear and simple title is catchy, sophisticated and representative of the project concept. The presentation suffers from a lack of hierarchy which is lost in part due to the shear density of drawings and text. It is recommended that the author choose one image - such as the urban rendering situated to the top left hand side of the sheet - and to increase its size and visual presence on the sheet. While the unit plans are clear in their simplicity, the block-scale plans lack hierarchy due to the limited range of line weights employed, in particular the ground floor plan and upper level plan. When reading the sheet as a whole it is impossible to comprehend the information these plans contain. The author would benefit from more diverse color fills as well as stronger line weights to differentiate interior from exterior spaces and between program types. The use of shadows might further help to increase the depth and readability of these drawings. Finally, annotation - space labels or clear indication of entry points - would help a reader’s comprehension.
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7/10 Linework
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8/10 Quality of drawings
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8/10 Balance of color
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8/10 Layout
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6/10 Hierarchy
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7/10 Annotation
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7/10 Text
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9/10 Clarity of story
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9/10 Clarity of diagrams
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8/10 Quality of overall presentation
3rd Prize Winner
Affordable Life
Competition is the moment to be involved in different themes and scale, sometimes to do pure research with less constraints of real world, sometimes to confront with projects about your professional interests to indagate new solutions.
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ItalyJury feedback summary
Affordable Life is a proposal for the construction of autonomous residential units capable of being installed atop waste areas in the city. Like a campsite, the proposal is for a partly self-sufficient and reversible system which only partially or punctually relies on the city’s services. The modular nature of the design promises flexibility and adaptability over time for the city and its inhabitants. The project offers ‘circle of life’ diagrams to describe how a typical user might purchase, expand and rearrange one’s living situation over time.
An exciting idea that imagines the possibilities of combining energy infrastructure and housing. Well executed and tremendous potential.
Andreas Tjeldflaat / Buildner guest jury
Founder, Framlab, Norway
This project’s strength is its central concept of addressing affordability through the creation of a living space that is adaptable to different stages of life. Although a system is proposed for servicing and the design of living units are simple and modular, it is unclear how an existing unit would be seamlessly attached to a new unit or expansion module.
Maya Mahgoub-Desai / Buildner guest jury
Chair of Environmental Design, OCAD University, Canada
Well thought out, simple, scalable, affordable, and adaptable. The circle of life diagrams are appreciated.
Craig Galati / Buildner guest jury
Principal and Shareholder of architecture firm LGA, USA
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe submission layout is excellent. The use of a single larger rendering to describe the urban quality of the project immediately draws a reader into the page and visually explains the key concepts. This is supplemented by three human-scale perspectives which are smaller in size but equally descriptive of the project. By inventing a means to describe the project’s key philosophical concepts using ‘circle of life’ diagrams, the author is able to also clearly describe the project’s design through clean drawings and a limited use of bold colors, guiding a reader through the diagrams. The amount of information conveyed is exactly what is needed here. The text and structural diagrams would benefit from being reduced in their quantity in order to increase their size and quality. Even for such a competition which calls for an extensive analysis to be placed on a single sheet, an author should consider the readability of the full sheet at the scale of the typical print, computer screen or projection - are the main points communicated equally in rendering, drawing and text when viewed in totality? While smaller drawings and explanations can aid a reader once they ‘zoom in’ to understand the project in detail, the author should also always consider the sheet in full.
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8/10 Linework
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8/10 Quality of drawings
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9/10 Balance of color
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9/10 Layout
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9/10 Hierarchy
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8/10 Annotation
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7/10 Text
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8/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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8/10 Quality of overall presentation
Buildner Student Award
LOA - Land of all
Personally, I see architecture competitions as an intellectual delight and a way to acknowledge and measure the current practices on an international basis. Also, it is a way to improve my skills of design and graphic representation and keep them at the sharpest level.
Read full interview
Jury feedback summary
LOA aims to address housing issues by focusing on three interrelated aspects of Las Vegas : the tourism economy, the city in plan, and sustainable building practices. The project proposes a modular heavy timber structure and prefabricated insert homes with an envelope of rammed earth panels. The proposal is also meant to provide space for ‘nomadic’ inhabitants and alternates insert homes with spaces for RVs and other vehicles. While not fully considered from a technical perspective of utilities and structural weights, the submission offers an interesting concept for how to build less and offer space to a greater range of people.
Because it relies on an open wooden framework and uses less materials per "unit," the construction cost per unit is relatively low; a cost effective option. It's also energy efficient in the summer because it mimics a wind tower for cooling. This concept allows for different types of housing units (RV's and micro-apartments) which makes it a unique solution to meet underserved populations in the Las Vegas housing market.
Christina Lennox / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer of Brownstone, USA
This project offers some strong ideas, if it were to be more fully developed.
Dr. Steffen Lehmann / Buildner guest jury
UNLV School of Architecture, USA
The proposal is an interesting design that understands the need to address the reliance on vehicles and mobile homes in the U.S.”
Persis Lam / Buildner guest jury
Associate Architect, Diamond Schmitt Architects, Canada
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereAs with other successful projects, this submission makes use of a primary rendered image well-located at the center of the sheet. The presentation has a clear urban plan and analysis followed by axonometric views to describe how the project may be convincingly inserted within the city. The overall use of color is consistent and sophisticated. The principal rendering is paired with a typical plan below, which is successful, though the scales are slightly different - the effect of this discrepancy is slightly disturbing to the eye. A reader will attempt to compare and read these two as a ‘package’, and so it would be helpful that they remain at the same scale. Both the rendering and plan would benefit from some basic annotation to describe the layering of programs, primary entry points, and the layout of spaces in plan. Given the project’s ambitions, the author would benefit from further structural analysis to more clearly communicate its construction and how this relates to its form and materiality.
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6/10 Linework
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7/10 Quality of drawings
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9/10 Balance of color
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8/10 Layout
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8/10 Hierarchy
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8/10 Annotation
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7/10 Text
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10/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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9/10 Quality of overall presentation
Buildner Sustainability Award
The Urban Drawer Cabinet Project - Affordable Housing in Las Vegas
I'm taking part in architecture competitions because I enjoy developing new ideas and turning them into designs.
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GermanyJury feedback summary
The Urban Drawer Cabinet Project is a proposal for a kit of parts consisting of a structural ‘carrier’ that can be built within and over existing railway infrastructure within Las Vegas. Individual ‘cabinet’ living units consisting of a structural steel frame system and prefabricated timber elements of various sizes can be inserted into the carrier. The system is designed to a standard 3x3m module for consistent connectivity to vertical circulation. It is then proposed to accumulate at various heights and lengths. The effect is mass linear housing stock that extends through the city to provide density in areas that currently lack it.
Although construction above existing railways opposes structural and acoustical challenges, this proposal of utilizing available space within the infrastructure system could be promising.
Fotini Pitoglou / Buildner guest jury
Architect, FORREC, Canada
This concept is innovative and space efficient! With affordable housing, it's important to consider land utilization and material cost of the design; this concept effectively achieves both. The construction is also relatively simple, allowing for time-efficiency, which is important for tackling the housing crisis. The only drawback is that the city may decline the construction of such a structure since its stakeholders can delay a project if they don't agree to building atop the rail system.
Christina Lennox / Buildner guest jury
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer of Brownstone, USA
This project has been selected for the Green Award based on its clever site selection using air rights above a railway corridor, not occupying a greenfield or other site; and its social and technical design.
Dr. Steffen Lehmann / Buildner guest jury
UNLV School of Architecture, USA
Buildner's commentary, recommendations and techniques review
Order your review hereThe submission takes advantage of a single large urban rendering to describe the project’s design intent and to provide a reader with a single primary image to digest. The image utilizes bold colors that are also varied to provide balance and to avoid visual monotony. Though the image is of high quality, the author might find it would become stronger with additional human figures to describe the project scale, how it is used, and to amplify the project’s purpose of adding density to key downtown areas. Given the design makes use of exterior balconies, the image would be more effective if these spaces were clearly being inhabited. The project would benefit from sectional drawings describing the spatial experience of the individual unit as well as its relationship of this new system with the railway below. It would answer some key questions as to how the project is constructed and accessed, as well as provide additional analysis to help prove that the project can be implemented and that it has been adequately considered from a technical perspective. Finally, an urban scale plan would help a reader who is not fully aware of the extents of the Las Vegas rail system. Where is this infrastructure located in the city, how many lines are there and, therefore, to what extent would the city be impacted by this proposal?
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6/10 Linework
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7/10 Quality of drawings
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9/10 Balance of color
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8/10 Layout
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8/10 Hierarchy
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8/10 Annotation
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7/10 Text
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10/10 Clarity of story
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8/10 Clarity of diagrams
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9/10 Quality of overall presentation
Honorable Mentions
Shortlisted projects
Rammed Earth Nevada
United States APT with creating Semi-Public Open Space
Sejong university, 세종대학교
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
South Korea SOAVE
Netherlands THE BAR AND THE VOID PROJECT
The central university of ecuador - universidad central del ecuador
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Ecuador Project ID 99604
The central university of ecuador - universidad central del ecuador
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Ecuador Affordable Family House Plan
University of pécs faculty of engineering and information technology
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Hungary LIVING TURBINE
Wroclaw university of science and technology (politechnika wrocławska)
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Poland Capsule Reef
Snono studio
United Arab Emirates Life Line
Faculty of engineering, architecture department - helwan university
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Egypt MINI COMMUNITY IN LAS VEGAS
University of pécs faculty of engineering and information technology
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Hungary Building Blocks
Italy 3x1 FLEX Living Units - Home for Everyone
University of pécs
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Hungary MAS APARTMENT COMPLEX
University of pécs faculty of engineering and information technology
+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
Hungary Hexahills
United Kingdom Common Ground
China Anteros Estates Net Zero Affordable Housing
Canada TYPE -0
Singapore (still) LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS
United States The Photovoltaic Dingbat w/o Soft Story
United States The Screen - A concept of affordable living and sustainable technologies
Studio gemma progettazione
Italy Ending Homelessness Through Transitional Housing & Low-Income Housing
College of marin
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
United States Autodidacticism Community
United States Dice home
Poland HESUD Las Vegas
United States Expandable Housing
Lebanon The Modular Pavilion
Marion philip design
France LAS VEGAS AFFORDABLE RESIDENTIAL HOUSING INITIATIVE (LAARI)
United States Lone Mountain Dunes
Poland Domus
United Kingdom LOA - Land of all
Centro universitário belas artes , fine arts - unit 3
+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
Brazil CASA C.S.T
Thailand Vegas Strips
Thecaliforniaoffice
United States 
The Urban Drawer Cabinet Project - Affordable Housing in Las Vegas
Germany Affordable Life
Italy Hanging Houses in LasVegas
Iran university of science and technology
+22 points Buildner University Rankings!
Iran LEGO OASIS IN DESERT
Australia 