The C.H.O.I.C.E. House: Emergency Shelter is a project designed to address the need for rapid rehousing solutions in both Alabama as well as the United States a whole. To do this, the team is working with C.H.O.I.C.E., a resource-based organization headquartered out of Uniontown, Alabama. Since 2009, Executive Director Emefa Butler and her team have worked to “bridge the gap between availability and accessibility” in Uniontown and all of Perry County. The 5th-Year student team is working with C.H.O.I.C.E. to support their rapid re-housing initiatives by designing and building emergency shelter for two clients at a time to stay for up to 30 days.
Dignity, durability and accessibility drive the design, given the varied demographics and high turnover of clients. While the student team will build to accommodate two occupants over the course of the project, the ultimate goal of this partnership with C.H.O.I.C.E. is to set an emergency shelter precedent that is replicable for many different conditions.
This is accomplished through a “machine” volume that concentrates many of the units’ services and acts as a divider between the living and sleeping volumes. The volume’s role as a divider is paramount to creating moments for privacy, a key component of a dignified dwelling.
