The winners of Habitat for Humanity’s Student Design Competition for Sustainable Homes have been announced. The competition asked students to utilize building strategies that would advance solutions to poverty with simple, decent, and healthy affordable housing. Following are just a couple of examples of some of the projects. 
University of Calgary students won the “West Region” award for their design of, The S House: A Passive House for Calgary. The home features the form, structure, and mechanical features of the home all integrated into one single shell. For example, the louvers in the home also act as a screen along the façade of the building. Utilizing components for multiple uses makes the home very simple, yet very sustainable.
A group from Auburn University won the award for “Best Use of Vinyl” for their entry, The Gallery House. The group steered away from the typical use of vinyl siding and used the material as an exterior skin. By integrating the windows and the exterior skin in the home, the group demonstrated the versatility of vinyl and how it can be used in different areas of the home. With their specific uses of the vinyl material, the Auburn students showed the practicality of using vinyl to make a home affordable, simple, and sustainable.
Today’s youth is tomorrow’s future and with students engaging in projects dealing with sustainability, the future looks bright for our country. It is incredibly important for our focus to continue to be on being more efficient, discovering new practices, and modifying and improving on what we already have and know.