The proposal by Sameep Padora and Associates for ‘Octacove Homes‘ has been awarded Honourable Mention in a Global Architecture Competition to Re-imagine Affordable Housing held by ICON, making them the only Asian firm to receive the recognition. The announcement was made at ICON’s SXSW 2024 event the ‘DOMUS EX MACHINA’ at the Long Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2024. Joining ICON’s Melodie Yashar, VP of Building Design and Performance on stage to present the winners was Darlene Goins, president of the Wells Fargo Foundation who was the lead sponsor of the competition. As part of the announcement, Goins announced that the Wells Fargo Foundation is committing $500,000 in grant funding to Austin-based nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes to help bring to life Initiative 99-designed homes and see multiple homes built at Community First! Village to serve the under-housed community.
The future of mass housing is inextricably linked to modes of production. By leveraging 3D printing for the Octacove homes, we propose to minimize structure and material conflicts such that the walls seamlessly become roofs and structure becomes form.
Sameep Padora, Founder, Sameep Padora and Associates
Initiative99 encouraged the participants to illustrate the architectural implications of the ‘three pillars’ of sustainable design, social, economic, and environmental sustainability, in their design submissions. With the Octacove Homes concept, the team aimed to fulfil these requirements and redefine the future of mass housing through the integration of structure, material, form, and function. The team now looks forward to participating in Phase 2 of the competition in the coming months.
About the Competition:
ICON, an Austin-based construction technology start-up, invited students, designers and architects from around the world to help tackle the world housing crisis by designing homes that could be built for $99,000 or less with ICON’s 3D-printed construction technology. The competition, Initiative 99 challenges not only to design these prototypes, but to ensure that these designs are accessible, beautiful, and dignified places people will be proud to call home. It aims to reinvigorate the discussion and the future of affordable housing by leveraging the efficiencies only enabled and achievable through 3D-printing.
More than 60 countries from all over the world were represented in the submissions with six winners and ten honorable mentions being awarded prize money from the $1M prize purse during the event and presented by Wells Fargo, lead supporter of the competition. The first, second, and third place designs in each category will each have their home designs featured in a collection in ICON’s CODEX, a new digital catalog of ready-to-print home architecture that allows builders, developers, and home buyers to build with ICON quickly and affordably using world-class architecture.
Images: ©Sameep Padora and Associates
