Jumpstart Ryan Gravel’s Generator

“What is innovative housing?” This was asked to a room full of folks at a seminar I attended a couple months back. It was a valid question given that we were there for what was billed as an Innovative Housing Summit. The funny thing was the event organizer and asker-of-the-question confessed that the same query had stumped him during a public radio interview promoting the event. A theater full of housing experts and presenters seemed to have their own difficulty articulating answers -- … [Read more...]

Bring shelter for the soul to BeltLandia

I recently toured a couple of live-work artist cottages at Serenbe Art Farm. The so-called 20K houses are the result of a seemingly unlikely partnership between the new urban enclave of the wealthy that is Serenbe, and Rural Studio, an undergrad program of Auburn University’s School of Architecture that builds houses for poor people. The visit took me back to one of the most transcendent moments of my life. It happened standing in a downpour outside a poor, elderly woman's home in Hale … [Read more...]