Porch With A Home - Pro Bono Tiny Sustainable Design

Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a truck ministry with a presence in Austin, conceived of a sustainable village for the chronically homeless and working poor. Called Community First! Village, it is a 27-acre master-planned community designed to provide affordable, supportive housing. Phase 1 includes a community garden, a medical facility, walking trails, wi-fi, an outdoor theater, a place for worship and study, and access to the CAP Metro. The site includes 70 microhomes whose designs were selected from AIA Austin DesignVoice’s Tiny Victories competition.

Page’s tiny house design entry, “A Porch with a Home,” was chosen as a finalist. Though it ultimately wasn’t selected by the competition jury, their design was a favorite of Mobile Loaves & Fishes Director Alan Graham, and was built along with the four winning entries. Follow the progress of Community First! Village and learn more about what goes into an undertaking of this sort through the below chronological posts. Now, Pagers are again involved in Phase 2, which began with a post-occupancy evaluation to identify lessons learned from Phase 1 designs.

To learn more about Community First! Village, see ongoing media coverage below.

Community First: Bringing More Voices Into Design
Hailey Algoe, Texas Architect Magazine, 07/17/2019
Prior to beginning Phase 2 of the Community First! Village, design teams conducted post-occupancy evaluations with residents of Phase 1 and worked with them on revised designs. 

Community First! Social Impact Design in Austin
Communities By Design, 06/18/2018
In this video, architects Shelby Blessing and Beau Frail reflect on their work with Community First! Village, a micro-housing development to address chronic homelessness in Austin. They describe how their values drive their commitment to social impact design with the ultimate goal to uplift and empower people.

Building Hope 
John T. Davis, Austin Monthly, 11/30/2015 
This in-depth article examines the inspiration for Community First! Village and tracks how the project came to fruition. It also profiles several of the people working there. 

Homeless Housing Project to Open This Fall
FOX 7 Austin, 08/28/2015
The Page design team responsible for the "Porch With A Home" design being built at Community First! Village expounds on this two-plus minute video on FOX 7 Local News. Architects, contractors and a building supply company all have come together to volunteer time and supplies to construct the village. 

Community First! Village Construction Underway In East Travis County
TWC News, 08/07/2015
TWC News showed viewers a construction update on Mobile Loaves & Fishes’ Community First! Village, a 27-acre master-planned community that will provide housing for the homeless in central Texas. Page is one of five teams that developed pro bono designs for the homes being built. 

Big News For Our Tiny House
Pagethink.com News, 05/26/15
The winners of Tiny Victories, an architectural design competition with the goal of providing permanent, supportive, affordable, and sustainable housing for the homeless in Austin, Texas, have been announced. There were 54 competitors, and Page’s tiny house design, “A Porch with a Home,” was chosen as a finalist.