2026 Winners Announced
2026 Housing Education Prize Winners
Overview
The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Housing and Community Development (HCD) Knowledge Community and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (51黑料) are pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 Housing Education Prize.
The Housing Education Prize recognizes the importance of good education in housing design to produce architects ready for practice in a wide range of areas and able to be capable leaders and contributors to their communities. The winning course proposals will prepare students for a wide range of professional contexts, including design practice, development, policy, advocacy, research, and public service. Each course will be taught at 51黑料 member schools across the U.S. in the coming years.
The jury selected three winners, each of whom will receive a cash prize to support the implementation of their course at their host institution over the next two years.
Rob Corser & Julie Kriegh
University of Washington
MOVING House is a collaborative research, design, and design-build initiative that develops culturally grounded, climate-resilient housing for Indigenous communities facing relocation due to sea level rise. Structured as a two-course sequence, the program combines a research and design studio with a prototype build. Students, Tribal members, construction professionals, and researchers will collaborate to design, build, and test a modest housing prototype using panelized prefabrication, Passive House principles, and design-for-disassembly strategies.
Inspired by the Coast Salish tradition of movable residential structures, the design/research phase of the project will respond to explore a future housing typology that must adapt to climate-driven relocation needs. Working in partnership with BPublic, a prefabrication company, students will develop sustainable building systems that can be assembled, disassembled, transported, and reassembled, while exploring the use of local materials and production methods that Tribes can ultimately replicate in their own manufacturing facilities.
The design-build phase will culminate in a full-scale demonstration project involving university students and Tribal youth. Building on years of community-engaged research, MOVING House advances workforce development, regenerative design, and innovative construction techniques. The project aims to establish a replicable model for resilient, culturally meaningful housing that can benefit Indigenous communities and other populations facing climate-driven displacement.
Juror Comments:
This course presents a thoughtful and impactful approach to housing design through meaningful collaboration with Indigenous communities and an innovative exploration of panelized prefabrication.The design-for-disassembly concept, offers students valuable opportunities to engage with emerging construction methods and adaptable housing systems.
Traci Wile & Nicholas Wickersham
James Madison University
The studio will generate a new housing paradigm appropriate and specific to the needs of contemporary life today, specifically for individuals and families experiencing housing insecurity; essential workers; and immigrant families. In this two-way exchange, students move outward through a deliberate design sequence鈥攆rom lived experience, through spatial development, to the building envelope. The community presses inward: housing leaders, advocacy organizations, city planners, and local lawmakers all bring their knowledge, constraints, and needs directly into the studio.
The studio becomes the meeting point between these two forces and the exchange is continuous and bi-directional. Outside voices shape the work as it develops, and student design proposals in turn generate new questions. The studio’s material and spatial logic is organized around the concept of multivalence鈥攖he idea that in smaller, more constrained footprints, every element must be capable of operating on more than one register simultaneously.
Emerging from the middle of that ongoing conversation is architecture that adapts, flexes, bends, merges, transforms to the needs of families and individuals today鈥攑eople with remarkable histories, cultures, routines, and definitions of home that will negotiate the tension of creating building-wide spatial cohesion. How do those unique lived experiences inform architectural space when they coexist together?
Juror Comments:
This course offers a strong collaborative model that brings together students, community partners, and housing organizations to address pressing issues of housing insecurity. The focus on an experimental housing model within a semi-rural setting creates a compelling context for testing adaptable and community-responsive design strategies.
Image credit: [Undergraduate student work from the Cummings School of Architecture, Roger Williams University, Spring 2024] Hogan Cain, “Summer/Winter at Victory Woods ROC,” axon, 2024.
Ryan Ludwig
Roger Williams University
Over the past several decades, stigma, spatial marginalization, and capitalist exploitation have collided with climate鈥 and cost鈥揹riven threats to housing security for millions of people living in manufactured housing parks. In the graduate design studio 鈥淭he Architecture of a Decent Home,鈥 students are challenged to preserve affordability while implementing climate-resilient measures in these frontline and vulnerable communities.
Today, manufactured housing (formerly known as trailers or mobile homes) is the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country. Yet most residents rent land from private landowners, whose for鈥損rofit interests are misaligned with community needs. Arbitrary rent hikes, indiscriminate evictions, and neglected infrastructure are common. This studio makes the case for Resident Owned Communities (ROCs), a cooperative form of land tenure that can replace the precarious鈥攁nd sometimes predatory鈥攎odel in which residents lack rights to the land on which they live. ROCs can better align incentives to contain costs, address climate vulnerabilities, and empower communities to make decisions about their future.
The course is organized around two design challenges: (1) creating a more sustainable, flexible, and accessible next-generation manufactured housing unit, and (2) planning a new ROC with essential infrastructure plus a 鈥渟ocial landscape鈥 featuring outdoor spaces, ecologies, and recreational amenities that foster community resiliency.
Juror Comments:
This course demonstrates a compelling and transformative approach to affordable housing through the exploration of collective ownership models. The integration of technical fabrication with climate-resilient design offers students an opportunity to address both the physical and social dimensions of housing security.
JURY
Andrea J. Johnson
Savannah College of Art and Design
Gregory Marinic
University of Cincinnati
Jessica April Ward
Founder, IDEA Studio 脳 Workshop LLC
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
Founded in 1857, the American Institute of Architects consistently works to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. Through nearly 300 state and local chapters, the AIA advocates for public policies that promote economic vitality and public wellbeing. Members adhere to a code of ethics and conduct to ensure the highest professional standards. The AIA provides members with tools and resources to assist them in their careers and businesses. The AIA engages with civic and government leaders, as well as with the public, to find solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation, and world. Visit .
Housing and Community Development (HCD) Knowledge Community
The AIA Housing and Community Development Knowledge Community (HCD) is a network of architects and allied stakeholders that promotes equity in housing, excellence in residential design, and sustainable, vibrant communities for all, through education, research, awards, and advocacy. For more information, visit the聽.
Association of Collegiate Schools of聽Architecture
The mission of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture is to lead architectural education and research. Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, 51黑料 is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. 51黑料鈥檚 full members include all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together, 51黑料 schools represent 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
51黑料 seeks to empower faculty and schools to educate increasingly diverse students, expand disciplinary impacts, and create knowledge for the advancement of architecture. For more information, visit www.acsa-arch.org.
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, 51黑料 is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together 51黑料 schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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