DesignBuildUTAH – Twenty Years of Compassionate Sustainability BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM DesignBuildUTAH@Bluff is celebrating 20 years of educating architecture students, providing innovative design and, along the way, creating an impressive body of work that is occupied by people of the Navajo Nation. The program has had a profound impact on designers, builders and users. The product, which largely is housing that is sustainable, low-maintenance and totally off-grid, is an important contribution to a tribal community in need of affordable housing. The student experience is priceless. It teaches design creativity within limitations, collaboration between very different cultures, and the hard skills necessary to take ideas off the page and put them into the ground. How It Started DesignBuildUTAH@Bluff is the brainchild of Hank Louis, a journalist turned writer/architect, who was driving through Utah when his car broke down. He stayed to ski and didn’t leave. Louis studied at the University of Utah’s School of Architecture to help him build his own home in Costa Rica. In the 90s, Louis happened upon the work of Samuel Mockbee in trade magazines. He was impressed by “Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul.” – Samuel Mockbee 8 REFLEXION
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