A Preliminary Budget Calculator for Sustainable Housing

Preamble

Over time I have come to realise that the cost-question sometimes obscures other key factors in the pursuit of housing. Cost ‘means the world’ to many home owners. It is, often, the first and single determinant of many decisions and affects the variety of permutations of materials and what these mean for shelter; the culture there in and the function of it. This indirectly spirals into impact on sustainability, availability, durability, etc.

I would like to direct the client-consultant (architect-homeowner) discussion on cost; and feed it with the other equally important questions; I would like to curate the answer to the cost question and cast it against other players; unpacking the myriad of possibilities and giving the homeowner a chance at alternatives that would have otherwise been missed.

Overview

I apply for a grant to support the development of a digital web-based tool; “Budget Calculator for sustainable housing”.  This application will empower low and middle-income homeowners in Uganda by providing transparent, accessible and locally relevant preliminary cost estimates for sustainable technologies in housing projects. Alongside preliminary costing, the tool will present the impact of various technologies for sustainable architecture to the everyday families striving to build homes.

Background

For long I have pondered over and worked with various engineers to bring the very latest of material and sustainability innovations to housing for low and middle income groups. From the $ 5,000 USD 2-bedroom house in Nansana, to the 150 units estate that the National Pension Fund is developing to redefine affordable housing in Kampala.

Unfortunately the perceived hidden costs, unreliable contractors, and lack of clarity around materials and options frequently continue to derail projects, and leave some home owners questioning whether to pick sustainability!  Some households, assume that “cutting edge” is ‘expensive’; others are ignorant of the debates; such as the gravity of rapid population growth in the context of finite resources, urbanisation and changing climate.

The proposed calculator will allow users to input simple parameters—plot size, number of rooms, finishes, and choice of sustainability-components to save on materials, energy or water. The user will then receive outputs on preliminary costs and suggestions on permutations. Beyond the numbers, the tool will suggest pros and cons such as cost effectiveness, durability, or climate-appropriateness, while offering checklists for regulatory compliance, available incentives and the breadth of impact on the environment.

Student Involvement

Undergraduate students of architecture, quantity surveying and computer engineering from Makerere University will participate in the project through research, prototyping and user testing. They will help design culturally sensitive templates, collect local material price data, and engage communities in a participatory workshop. This involvement will expose students to the architecture as a social art — an act of empowerment and inclusion.

Funding Request: I am requesting the full $10,000 grant to cover:

• Community workshop and student stipends
• Software & website application development and prototyping
• Data collection and price database for materials and technologies
• Documentation (a manual, digital launch)

I already have the resources for website hosting, and two experienced quantity surveyors in the housing sector.

This stage is a proof of concept and a launching pad for perhaps an android-based app that can be scaled to other regions or augmented with more local context or AI attributes.

Projected Completion Date: 7 Months Timeline.

Andrew Amara
B.Architecture, Msc Urban Development & Planning, MBA, Certified Green Building Expert
Principal Architect at Flame Consultancy Group
Project Management Consultant for UN – UNICEF & WFP

Visit: https://townbuild.net/word/ for illustration of past participatory house planning & design

ENGAGING WITH INFORMAL ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
___________________________

Overview:

I hereby apply for a grant to support publication of a range of architecture and urban design studio projects that have developed through studies of informal settlements in South and Southeast Asian cities. These projects involve mapping and analysis of these settlements as well as architectural and urban design visions for upgrading in a context of ethical co-production.

Background:
Informal settlement is the primary form of affordable housing in many global South cities.  While often stereotyped as 'slums' and threatened with demolition, such settlements are often complex, vibrant, dynamic, productive and resilient. On-site upgrading with community collaboration is the only pathway to sustainable redevelopment of most settlements, but this requires major changes to the education of architects and other built environment professionals, including grounded experience of the complex ways in which informal architecture and urbanism works. The Informal Urbanism Research Hub (Infur-) at the Melbourne School of Design (MSD), University of Melbourne has led several travelling studios to study such settlements in South and Southeast Asia in cities such as Jakarta, Manila, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Mumbai. These studios have been run in collaboration with local universities in the home cities, NGOs and community-based organizations. While geared to my own research on informal settlements (Atlas of Informal Settlement (2023) and The Spatial logic of Informal Urbanism (2024)), this project will also involve the collaboration of MSD colleagues who have also led these studios: Ash Alam (Urban Planning) and Amanda Achmadi (Architecture) with backgrounds in South and Southeast Asia respectively.

The Project:

This project will produce a book and web-based resources that describe the pedagogical and ethical framework for conducting these studios, along with a range of mapping, analysis and design work produced. This publication will be directed at three primary audiences: first for the communities we have worked with as a record of their collaboration and the ideas that might be implemented; second, as a globally accessible student resource for how to study informal settlements; third, as a more formal research publication analyzing and comparing South and Southeast Asian cities.

Student Involvement:

These travelling studios have involved a total of about 45 graduate students in architecture, urban design, landscape and planning from the MSD, who collaborate with students from local universities and spend up to a week investigating a single settlement before presenting ideas back to that community.

Funding:

Travel costs for students and staff have been provided or subsidized by the MSD. Additional funding is required to employ Research Assistants to collate, edit, curate and format this work for both web-based and book publication. I will oversee the project and Infur- will provide in-kind contributions through staff time. I am requesting the full $10,000 from the Berkeley Prize Endowment to cover a total of approx. 200 hours of Research Assistance across a full year plus costs for full colour and high-quality publication. We anticipate that this will employ several students who have been involved in these studios, and who seek to pursue these ideas further; much more than collating existing materials this will involve development of modes of visual representation for the complex ways in which informal architecture and urbanism works; the work will be geared to PhD research and will include co-authorship.

Projected Completion Date:  mid-2027

Berkeley Prize Endowment 2025 Grant Proposal

“PLANNING FOR POWER”
___________________________

Overview
I am applying for a grant from the Berkeley Prize Endowment to support a digital publication with Stanford University Press. The project, tentatively titled "Planning for Power," uses comparative analysis of historic maps to demonstrate how urban planning traditions have accommodated, and occasionally challenged, political power.

Background
Historians have long understood urban planning as an arena in which interest groups compete for resources and legitimacy, but most studies rely only on textual sources like governmental reports, newspapers, voting records, census data, and correspondence. Such an approach is necessary but insufficient to a comprehensive understanding of planning and power. Because planners communicate with maps the plans they produce often speak volumes about interests and dynamics upon which textual sources remain silent.

"Planning for Power" is a book manuscript presented in a digital format that allows flexible reading pathways and--crucially--the capacity to present comparative cartographic analysis through imagery. This book grows out of my "Imagined San Francisco" project (imaginedsanfrancisco.org) that I developed at Stanford's Center for Textual and Spatial Analysis (CESTA) between 2016 and 2020. Using this platform I will create the "Planning for Power" digital manuscript.

Student Involvement
This project has involved at least twenty undergraduate students from Stanford and the University of Oregon (UO), and several graduate students from the UO. In 2024 I taught an undergraduate/graduate seminar where students built their own websites using the software, focusing on subjects ranging from the Japanese occupation of Beijing, to the colonial planning of Manila, to military basing in Seattle. Undergraduates thereby offered crucial insights as testers of the software platform. Undergraduates have also contributed by georeferencing maps and conducting light research. Graduate students have also been crucial, writing the code that undergirds the project, streamlining workflows, and creating onboarding guides to the software.

Funding Sources to Date
Stanford University Press has expressed strong interest in publishing this project as part of their Digital Humanities list. Due to a combination of steep funding cuts and the expiration of a Mellon grant, the Press requires a $15k subvention to support any digital project. As a professor at a major public university, my annual research budget would be woefully insufficient to cover this expense. I am therefore requesting the full $10k from the Berkeley Prize Endowment to cover the majority of the subvention. This grant would make "Planning for Power" possible.

Projected Completion Date
With this grant, we expect that the digital book manuscript will finally be published by the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.

Thank you for your consideration.

____________________

Ocean Howell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, University of Oregon
Practice Areas: Urban Planning, Design and Architecture, Urban History, History of
Race, Gentrification, Defensive Architecture, Planning Debates, Youth Culture

https://news.uoregon.edu/expert/ocean-howell-department-history

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Overview

I am applying for this grant to support work that I am doing as assistant professor at Birzeit University. Specifically, to support public-facing aspects of teaching in two courses, “Landscape Architecture” and “Architecture in Palestine”. 

Background

I have long believed that local actors and concerns should play a central role in the teaching of architecture. My 2013-2014 BP Teaching Fellowship expressed and developed this conviction through universal design and user-expert involvement. In my current courses I continue this philosophy in multiple ways, one of which is a collaboration with a local municipality (Al-Bireh Municipality). In “Architecture in Palestine” this collaboration centers around the municipal archives, which students digitize, make publicly available, and utilize to study architectural and urban history. In “Landscape Architecture” I collaborate with the Municipality on designing food-production gardens on public and derelict private land. Here, farmers, residents, and municipal architects are involved in various respects. In both courses, local problems are used as means to think about universal issues—such as the food-sovereignty crisis in the Global South. 

Intended outcome 

With this grant I intend to develop two aspects of my teaching which have no sources of funding in the department budget allocation. 

The first is to give a public interface to these courses: to create a website and produce printed volumes that disseminate the work of the students and synthesize my teaching philosophy in a manner that is accessible to a public audience. In my experience, such public involvement motivates students (seeing their work’s impact and thus responsibility), pushes the teaching further (by enhancing feedback loops with the targeted community), and catalyzes a similar direction among colleagues.  

• Product: 
  • One website, updated with student work at the end of each semester. 
  • Two volumes, one for each course, each comprised of multiple issues documenting student work (an issue per semester).   

The second is to support the involvement of user-experts and guests in the courses. This would insure that the connection between the courses and the community goes beyond the design of the course and is maintained throughout the semester. While I am already involving guests and user-experts in these courses, this is done pro-bono and is becoming a burden and an impediment especially for lower-income guests. 

• Product: 
  • Modest honoraria. 
  • Local transportation expenses and other logistical costs. 

I see the grant as seed-funding for this pilot: launching and maintaining the website, and printing a limited number of books—both for two years, during which other funding can be applied for and obtained to print at a larger scale, include more courses, and maintain the website for longer.

Budget

Website design: $1,000

Website maintenance: $1,000/year

Book design: $500/issue ($1,000/year)

Book printing: $1,000/issue ($2,000/year) 

Honoraria: $300/semester ($600/year)

Logistical costs: $200/semester ($400/year) 

Total:  $11,000 for 2 years

* I will try to obtain the remaining thousand from another source. If I manage to cut costs below the amount granted, the remainder would be used to fund the project for an extra semester or year. 

Berkeley Prize Endowment 2025 Grant Proposal

“PROPOSING SERVICE THROUGH THE ARTS TO THE PEOPLE”

Overview

I am applying for a grant from the Berkeley Prize Endowment to support the research and proposal of multiple class proposals for undergraduates and graduates at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to collaborate and use their talents in providing needed services for non-profit or governmental entities in Savannah, Georgia.  Every student will use their diverse talents in a socially responsible, compassionate manner, as well as to contribute to a written component that all projects will include.

Background

SCAD has begun recently to offer a range of collaborative design studios called SCADpro classes connecting students with businesses “to find creative and inventive solutions to real-world challenges.”  I led one in 2024 that focused on the “Colors of Savannah” collaborating with Sherwin-Williams.  I was struck by the positive intensity of the student and corporate engagement, and the tangible goal-based orientation to find opportunities for fresh ideas serving the company.  I immediately wanted to apply the same energy and creativity to support non-profit, community-based organizations or services in the Savannah area.

“Proposing Service Through the Arts” supports a series of proposals for SCADserve classes allowing the collaborative energy of students from diverse majors to work together to support goals desired by the organizations chosen to be worked with.  SCADserve classes are designed to help non-profit or governmental organizations with the same kind of broad, professional skills of a SCADpro, but made available at an affordable cost to the organization.

One project could engage the Historic Savannah Foundation to survey, research history, and provide future design possibilities for Savannah’s lane housing and its historically marginalized residents. 

Student Involvement

Each SCADserve would involve an average of 15 students.  Depending on the specific deliverables desired by the collaborating agency, students would apply and be chosen from across SCAD’s diverse majors.  Architecture, Architectural History, Historic Preservation, Interior Design, Illustration, and Writing are some that I have worked with in the past.  All students would collaborate with one another and with the representatives of the organizations supporting the initiatives.  I would lead 2.5-hour classes twice a week and monitor other group activity times.  Organization representatives would engage at the beginning, mid-point and toward the end to make sure that proposed work is shaping up in the desired and most beneficial manner.

Funding Sources to Date

SCAD has expressed definite interest in facilitating SCADserve classes - especially ones where the preliminary research has uncovered lead sponsors within an organization, and clear deliverables are established prior to teaching.

Projected Completion Date

The completion date for researching and organizing a series of SCADserve classes would be by the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.  The actual classes would be taught in sequences of quarters beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year.  The fastest possible completion would be in immediately sequential quarters, but that is as yet to be determined.

Daves Rossell, Ph.D., Professor of Architectural History, Savannah College of Art and Design

On Time: Reflections on the Influence and Legacy of Juhani Pallasmaa

Overview

This application seeks funding from the Berkeley Prize Endowment to support a symposium and publication celebrating and reflecting on humanist values in architectural design. The effort is prompted by two coincident anniversaries that occur in the fall of 2026, the 90^th birthday of Finnish architect and professor Juhani Pallasmaa, and the 30^th anniversary of his foundational essay, ‘The Eyes of the Skin’. Together, these anniversaries offer a timely opportunity to reflect on the influence of Pallasmaa’s work and to speculate on the cross-cultural relevance of his thinking today.

Background

Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa is known widely for his lectures, essays and books, many of which have become touchstones in the discourse on human experience and architecture. His essay from 1996 stands as a seminal critique of ocularcentrism in architecture and a compelling argument for the importance of sensory perception in design. As a young undergraduate, the book had a profound influence on my own thinking and on the essay for which I was awarded the Berkeley Prize in 2003.

However, Pallasmaa’s legacy and thinking extend well beyond this single text. Over the past three decades, he has engaged with a wide range of scholars in disciplines from neuroscience and entomology to poetics and film. In this time, his thinking has evolved and expanded while revolving continually around questions of perception, solitude and the relationship between the individual and collective. Accordingly, the aim of this event is not only to honor or celebrate the life of an author, but also to bring together a diverse range of figures who continue to build on his ideas and legacy.

Framework and Funding

I have initiated this project with my former colleague Jenni Reuter, Professor of Architecture at Aalto University (Helsinki). Together we will serve as a co-chairs of the event and co-editors of the publication. We have already received support from Aalto University with an agreement to provide space, logistical support and a modest financial award for a day of lectures at Aalto University (Alvar Aalto, 1964). This platform and venue allows us to host up to 500 guests, most of them students from across the university, and we seek additional funding of $10,000 to expand the range of presenters beyond the confines of northern Europe. We believe that it is critically important to go beyond Finnish and Nordic borders to include guests that can speak to Pallasmaa’s influence in a global context. To this end, we have made preliminary contact with architects including Wang Zhu (China, 1963), Francis Kéré (Burkina Faso, 1965) and Pezo von Ellrichshausen (Argentina/Chile, 1973 and 1976), all of whom have cited Pallasmaa's influence on their work. We aim to bring these designers into conversation with non-architectural scholars such as Vittorio Gallese (Neuroscience, Italy, 1959) and Susan Stewart (Poetry, USA, 1952) who have enagaged with Pallasmaa in scholarly activities. Funding form the Berkeley Prize Endowment would support travel costs for some of these guests as well as transcription and recording of their presentations to be used in the future publication.

Projected Schedule

The symposium will be held in the last weeks of September, 2026. The publication is expected to be assembled in the following year with an anticipated release in summer of 2027.

Thank you for your consideration.

Philip Tidwell

Assistant Professor of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley