AIA Birmingham’s AIA4Shelter Competition Offers Homes for the Homeless
Local Cohen Carnaggio Reynolds designs first-place entry

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How do you . . . address homelessness in your component’s community by involving chapter members and partnering with a local organization?

Summary: AIA Birmingham’s AIA4Shelter committee is working with nonprofit Aletheia House in Birmingham to build a one-story, three-bedroom, single-family bungalow for a homeless family in the city’s historic Norwood neighborhood. The bungalow home is the result of AIA Birmingham’s design competition that invited chapter members to participate. Construction is expected to begin at a budget of $100,000.

AIA4Shelter is an AIA Birmingham committee started in the fall of 2006 to encourage members to work with the community to reduce homelessness. Arch L. Trulock, AIA, principal architect, Trulock Architecture, LLC, and AIA4Shelter chairman, recalls speaking up at an AIA Birmingham executive committee meeting about how AIA chapters around the country are helping the homeless—and that AIA Birmingham should begin its own program. “I got nominated to be chairman,” he says. “AIA Birmingham was real excited and felt that whatever we could do in that arena we should do.”

Competition held by AIA Birmingham, Aletheia House
AIA Birmingham worked with nonprofit Aletheia House, an organization that builds transitional housing for the homeless. The chapter held a design competition last fall calling on AIA Birmingham architects to get involved, with Aletheia House funding the project, which included prize money. “Rhea Williams, executive director of AIA Birmingham, made it possible for us to pull off the design competition for Aletheia House. She has done many great things for our AIA chapter. Without her dedication, it would not have been possible for a few very busy architects to pull this off,” says Trulock.

Four winning designs were selected from 13 entries by a five-member jury. “We had two architects, one of whom was an architecture historian, one contractor, and a member of the neighborhood association on the jury,” notes Trulock. The designs were judged based on neighborhood context, affordability, sustainability, design, and livability. Birmingham-based Cohen Carnaggio Reynolds garnered the winning design and received a $1,000 award. The second place design received a $500 award, and non-cash prizes were awarded to the third and fourth place designs. “The intent is that Aletheia House will build all four designs on different sites,” adds Trulock. “Part of the competition was that the designs be flexible enough so that each can be modified to fit whatever neighborhood site.”

Fitting into neighborhood context
The design competition called for a 1,400-square-foot, single-family house on a 50x150-foot site in historic Norwood, a low-income neighborhood characterized by one- and two-story bungalows on raised-pier foundations. The design was to be site-specific to fit into the fabric of the old historic bungalow neighborhood.

The winning design is a pier bungalow by Cohen Carnaggio Reynolds, led by Roman Gary, AIA, and Michael Hallisey. The design includes three bedrooms, a central kitchen under a skylight, dining space as “the heart” of family activity, and a screened private porch. “Aletheia House has contracted with Cohen Carnaggio Reynolds to do construction documents for the house. They will work with a federally funded program for construction that involves young men and women who didn’t finish high school and are learning the construction trade,” says Trulock.

Trulock is enthusiastic about the revitalization of Norwood. “There are houses that are run down and haven’t been taken care of over the years, but it’s a gorgeous old neighborhood that is coming back.”

Accent on sustainability
All design entries were asked to consider sustainability, Trulock points out. The winning design is Energy Star® certified and incorporates:

• Rainwater cistern for lawn and garden irrigation
• Tankless water heater
• Operable windows at the porch and roof projection produce a stack effect for natural ventilation
• Continuous ridge vent
• R-30 attic insulation
• Light-colored asphalt shingles
• Bamboo flooring
• Concrete and cast iron piping acquired from plants within three miles of the site
• Trellis roof
• Recycled lumber from houses slated to be demolished for the floor, trellis, and porch framing
• Shaded exterior windows.

Next step
Concludes Trulock: “We are currently working on a video and PowerPoint presentation that we will use to educate neighborhood associations, developers, contractors, and the downtown business community about the realities of homelessness and how affordable housing can fit into existing historic neighborhoods, without bringing property values down, and using good design principles and detailing.