EcoMOD is a design / build / evaluate studio at the University of Virginia dedicated to creating housing that is sustainable, modular and affordable. The studio lets students take the reins of all three stages of architectural design – Schematic Design, Design Development and Construction. This provided our team of undergraduates a rare opportunity to experience the complete construction experience, including often-neglected aspects, such as working with historical zoning ordinances. My role on the interdisciplinary team of architects, engineers and construction professionals was to facilitate the initial design through model prototypes and concept generation as well as carpentry, electrical and finish work on the final building.

DESIGN

The first semester was spent working within the project constraints to create a unifying design concept, which was then iterated through diagrams and scale models.

BUILD

After blueprints were created by graduate architecture students, we moved onto construction, which took place in an ancient aircraft hanger miles from the final site.

TRANSPORT

The four modules were then loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck, shipped to the building site and connected before the final touches were added.

INHABIT

And there you have it! To my knowledge, the house is still standing, having already weathered the worst snowstorm to hit Charlottesville in half a century.