In consideration of a wholly integrated and sustainable human environment, we begin with the house. It is within this unit of dwelling that we draw careful thought for the increasing scales of our ecological footprint. Starting from the basic social unit of the house: the family, the proposal also looks to the neighborhood, the community, and the territory, in which a group of people may come to invest their livelihoods.
By repositioning the humble, but technologically robust hoop house, this proposal combines the use of sustainable materials with an organizational strategy invested in the simultaneous production of food and civic culture. Not only does the base function of a hoop house contribute to higher food security in this frigid, isolated region, the hoop house unit’s flexibility extends to provide the space of the community. The hoop house becomes the connector of neighborhoods, not just a thermal technology, nor a mechanism for increasing food production. It is all of these. It becomes the glue that fixes families, livelihood, and community aspirations together.
OikoHouse won first prize in the 2016 Turtle Mountain Housing Prototype competition.
Collaborative project designed by Christopher Reznich and Justin Kollar.