FRONTIER HOUSE
2017
Collaborator: Bowline Studio
Client: Epicenter
The Frontier House is a modestly sized home built as a prototype to address the specific housing needs, the climate, the culture, and the economy of Green River, Utah. It is designed as a case study to test an affordable, quality made, and high-performance option specific to this place. Its target audience is the low-income workforce broadly, and the workforce in rural Utah specifically, where trailers have become ubiquitous for meeting affordable housing needs. The house, as an equity-building asset, is meant to serve as a basis for a family to escape intergenerational poverty, providing the familial wealth and housing security essential for the stability of a household. The goal of the project is to meet or beat the average monthly housing costs of living in a trailer.
We did the construction using local contractors for specialty work, and building the home ourselves. We bought materials from our one local hardware store whenever possible. We regularly hosted local visitors on site throughout the process and trained our local staff on construction skills, techniques, and the systems we were using to respond to the climate of this specific place. Each week we documented our progress and discussed what had worked well and what could be improved.