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Winners of the 2021 AIA Small Project Awards announced

2021-06-25T12:11:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has unveiled the eleven winning projects for the 2021 edition of the AIA Small Projects Awards. Now in its eighteenth year, the awards were established by the Small Project Design (SPD) Knowledge Community to “recognize small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work.” The initiative also seeks to raise awareness of the value and excellence that architects can apply to projects regardless of size, brief, or scope.

The eleven winners are spread across three categories. Below, we have set out the winning entries, along with a description excerpt. For full details on the winning projects, visit the AIA’s official website here. You can also recap previous winners of the Small Project Awards through our coverage in 2020 and 2019.

Category 1

Small project construction, an architectural object, work of environmental art or an architectural design element that costs up to $150,000 in construction.

Casa de Baño (Bathhouse), Temasca...

BIG designs first prototype for affordable vacation home company Klein

2018-08-15T15:12:00-04:00

Behold the first prototype of the Brooklyn-based Klein, a new company that wants to make the process of building small houses more affordable all over the world. A45 is a 13-foot-long wood and glass cabin for one, two, or three people (if one of them is tiny) designed by the Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group [...] meant to be the first of many designs [that will fulfill the fantasy] of having a home outside the city...

Founder Soren Rose started Klein after leading the firm Søren Rose Studio based in New York and Copenhagen. By providing small, cheap, prefab houses the company aims to make vacation home ownership more affordable to a wider audience.

Klein prototype A45 by BIG. Image: Matthew Carbone.

While there are currently no set prices, homes are projected to range from $50,000 to $300,000.

Klein prototype A45 by BIG. Image: Matthew Carbone.

The first prototype, designed by BIG, is the start of several options which will be fully customizable and ready within 6 months of placing an order.

Klein prototype A45 by BIG. Image: Matthew Carbone.

Klein is currently taking preorders on a case by case basis.

Klein prototype A45 by BIG. Image: Matthew Carbone.

Cube Haus commissions top architects to design modular, affordable homes

2018-05-08T15:57:00-04:00

What if buying a house were more like buying a car? Could the process of choosing between a Ford, Volkswagen or Nissan ever translate into picking between an Adjaye, Rogers or Assemble? Beyond the dream of ever being able to buy a house, the prospect of commissioning an architect-designed home is an impossibly remote prospect for most of us, a luxury confined to the glossy pages of Sunday supplements and Grand Designs.

The founders of Cube Haus have commissioned well known architects such as Adjaye Associates, Skene Catling de la Peña, and Carl Turner Architects to design modular homes at affordable prices. Targeting infill and backland sites in the London area, Cube Haus is looking to fill a small housing niche with well-crafted, off-plan new properties.

Off-site production and lower margins allow the company to produce houses 10%-15% cheaper than equivalent properties in a given area. The trick is to come up with modular designs that can properly adapt to different, awkward sites. Cube Haus aims to create a portfolio of building types that can be scaled up for larger number unit sites—creating affordable housing designed by some of the top names in architecture.

The disappearing barsati, or rooftop dwellings, of Delhi

2015-12-21T17:33:00-05:00

Buildings in Delhi’s residential areas were restricted to two storeys, with construction permitted on only a fraction of the space on the third floor, so on top of homes, families built small dwellings for their own use, as accommodation for domestic staff or to rent out cheaply. Exposed to the elements, the single room on the top floor became known evocatively as the barsati – derived from the Hindi word for rain, barsaat.

"These apartments – generally, a small shack with a large terrace – afforded a new generation of urbanites cheap living space near the centre of town... But it’s a typology that, as land values rise and the population grows, is fast disappearing. While there are no official figures, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the 1980s, 75% of small rentable properties in many residential suburbs were barsatis – the same areas today have only a few dozen such properties, but many more apartment blocks."