Tag Archives: AIA

One of h+uo’s project architects, Kristina Olivent, AIA, is going to be a presenter at the 40th Annual Conference of the Association for Community Design taking place in Dallas, Texas from June 22-25.

The conference is made up of a series of presentations, workshops, participatory and/or advocacy events, tours and networking opportunities which seek to further the practice and awareness of community-engaged design.

As defined by ACD, community-engaged design is “a movement focused on the creation and management of environments for people. This process promotes change to the built environment from the neighborhood to regional scale, and aims to meet community needs through participatory decision-making at all levels.”

Kristina Olivent, AIA is a co-chair of AIA Austin’s DesignVoice committee. Along with fellow committee members, she will be presenting case studies, tools for success, and lessons learned from DesignVoice’s current community-engaged design projects. These projects will be the Mi Jardin Bus Stop Shelter, which was a design competition DesignVoice held in partnership with Austin’s transportation authority, CapMetro, to provide a placemaking neighborhood landmark in an underserved part of the city.  A second project to be featured will be the Tiny Victories competition DesignVoice hosted to provide designs for micro-homes for the chronically homeless in partnership with Community First! Village.

h+uo encourages you to consider attending this conference that will offer inspiring ideas for fostering community design and enriching our shared daily experience. You can register by clicking the link below.

A recent AIA Austin (the Austin Chapter of the American Institute of Architects) design competition led our Project Manager, David Carroll, AIA, to a winning project entry.

David, and his partner on the project, Gerard D’Arcy from Sixthriver Architects, have been assisting with the latest Mobile Loaves and Fishes project called “Community First! Village.”  The new development will help house a large number of citizens of the Austin homeless community. Carroll and D’Arcy have been spending the past year designing and now building the structure on a plot of property near the Expo Center.  Once the shelter he helped design began taking shape, it was so well received the organizers decided to make it a chapel instead of a dwelling so they entire community could experience the unique structure.

Along with this and other micro-homes making up this community, there will be tents and trailers for those in need to rent out as they build their way back to financial stability. The community is fit with kitchens and restrooms, gardens and dog parks, a bus stop and health clinic.

“I’ve worked on several homeless shelters and affordable housing projects,” says David of his architectural career. “I’ve witnessed people wanting a sense of independence…” an independence he thinks this affordable community can make a reality.

To learn more about the project and ways you can help, visit Mobile Loaves and Fishes website here: http://mlf.org/community-first/