In Canada, contest seeks designs for homes sourced within 100 miles

The 100 Mile House competition is soliciting designs for a house for four that only uses materials and systems made, manufactured or recycled within 100 miles of the city of Vancouver, B.C.

Locavores may be familiar with the concept of the “100-Mile Diet,” but it seems a fairly safe guess that most haven’t yet heard of a related concept being applied to the architectural world. Sure enough, also based in Canada, the 100 Mile House competition is now soliciting designs for a house for four that only uses materials and systems made, manufactured or recycled within 100 miles of the city of Vancouver, B.C. Much the way the 100-Mile Diet challenges readers to source their food locally, so the 100 Mile House encourages them to do the same for the materials that make up their homes. Conducted by the Architecture Foundation of British Columbia, the new competition seeks designs that “rethink the way we live and select materials, systems and technology that reflect this reality in the world of computers, the internet, Facebook, etc.” In addition to using only components deriving from within 100 miles of the city of Vancouver, concept homes must also feature a maximum area of 1,200 square feet. A hypothetical flat, corner site of 33 by 120 feet is being used for the context, with all city services available should the entrant choose to use them. The contest’s registration deadline is April 19. Entries will be judged by a panel of international experts, with a total of CAD 10,000 to be awarded to the winners announced next month. We’ve come across crowdsourced housing designs before of course when we covered the $300 House project, and this is another interesting spin on the idea. Now that we’ve seen crowsourcing used to design cheap and locally built houses, how else could the model be used to encourage better housing design?