A team of Taubman College students recently competed in the “Final Four” of the 2020 HUD Innovation in Affordable Housing student competition.
With the need for quality, affordable housing having never been greater, the competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is designed to encourage research and innovation in affordable housing, to raise practitioner and future practitioner capacity, and to foster cross-cutting teamwork within the design and community development process. The Taubman College team consisted of Josh Childs (M.U.R.P./M.P.P.), Bryan Hicks (M.Arch), Sam Kollar (M.U.R.P.), Amelia Linde M.Arch/M.U.D.), and Jess Yelk (M.Arch/M.U.R.P.).
The 2020 challenge focused on Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is one of the fastest-growing small cities in the United States. Like other cities of all sizes, Santa Fe faces an affordability crisis and needs thousands of new rent-restricted units to balance its current affordability deficit, “so from the start, we knew we wanted to design a project at the greatest scale allowed by current zoning in order to bring as many new affordable units as possible,” said Childs.
