Last Saturday American YouthWorks’ (AYW) students and Design Voice, a committee of the Austin chapter of the American Institute of Architects, formed a design charrette to generate new, innovative and beautiful floor plans for energy efficient homes. These new designs will be used by students in AYW’s Casa Verde Builders (CVB) program to construct homes for low income, first time homebuyers.
The CVB program is made up of students seeking their GED or high school diploma while developing job skills in green construction. Since 1995, students in the program have built almost 100 energy efficient, affordable homes. Currently, CVB has a limited number of floor plans and the new designs will assist CVB with building and offering more housing choices to the community and will challenge AYW students by providing opportunities to gain new construction skills.
Currently, our young people are involved in the construction process from the foundation to the roof, but do not participate in creating floor plans. The charrette was be a unique opportunity for AYW students to learn more about the design phase of construction and get exposure to potential career paths in architecture.
Design Voice is a committee of AIA Austin that enables the greater design community to connect and collaborate with organizations and individuals interested and engaged in housing advocacy, development and community building in Austin. We thank them for their service to AYW students!