
2013 R+D Awards Winner: EcoMod
Poplar bark shingle siding on EcoMod Award Winner
Sustainable and affordable are two words that aren’t typically seen together in the building industry. The juxtaposition is what caught the eyes of the jury as it reviewed the high-performance, modular housing design led by John Quale, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Virginia (UVa). Over the past decade, the EcoMod project has pooled the research and development efforts of more than 370 students from UVa’s architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, planning, business, and historic preservation programs. Together, they’ve ventured into merging ecology with economy, and modern design with modular construction and community partnerships.