sustainable architecture

It’s hard for homes to be green. Despite long-term energy savings, it’s even harder for low-income homes to afford upfront costs of some sustainable materials. But ecological design doesn’t have to mean more “green” from your wallet. In fact, using recycled and sustainable material, as one local project has shown, can be both economically viable and environmentally friendly.

The San Antonio Alternative Housing Corporation (SAAHC) is a nonprofit organization that provides housing and support services for low and moderate income communities in the central Texas area.  When they construct new housing units, they want to minimize up-front construction costs as well as long-term operational expenses.  They were open to exploring alternate construction techniques, but wanted an opportunity to test the viability of these options.

As it happened, Taeg Nishimoto, Associate Dean of the UTSA College of Architecture, had been working for several years to develop a program that would give architecture students experience throughout the entire process of realizing a project from conception through construction...