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Smith said that in the early days of Rural Studio, the program was focused on making their housing as affordable as possible, something the team calls the “20K Project.”
While the moniker isn’t a hard and fast rule, Rural Studio often meets the challenge of spending only $20,000 on the materials needed for each project.
The challenge also taught them an important lesson: building “low-cost housing” by saving materials does not equate to “affordable housing,” nor will it necessarily save homeowners in the long run.
“Sometimes it’s actually the most affordable to have people live in homes that cost more to build,” Smith said.
What Smith means is that if architects focus solely on minimizing the final cost of a home, they’ll skip over issues like energy efficiency. But this ignores most people’s actual housing budget – their monthly expenses through their mortgage. Once you think of homeownership as a monthly cost, you can consider other expenses, such as utilities.
The studio came up with a cost-effective equation: Spending $5,000 on an energy-efficient home can pay for itself if the monthly electricity bill drops by $25.
It’s a win for everyone – the homeowner gets a more valuable home, banks have less risk in approving a more valuable home, and less energy is wasted, so it’s better for the planet It’s a victory.
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