Thank you for being here!

Background

We, and every community in the US, will need much more housing for seniors in the coming years, as large Baby Boomer generation ages. Casitas/ADUs can be a beautiful part of the solution.  Here's more information about the huge growth in the number of seniors in the coming years.

To provide people with easier and quicker options for building beautiful small backyard houses for their parents (or other family members or friends), AARP gives grants to cities around the country to run competitions to design them. Alpine Community Projects (ACP) was recently awarded one of these grants and is running the competition this fall! 

These backyard houses are generally called ADUs (Auxiliary Dwelling Units). We think that sounds sterile, so we're calling them Backyard Cottages. ADUs can have  many uses, but the purpose of the ADUs designed for this competition is to create homes for aging community members. Here's more information about ADUs.

Assuming we get enough good design applications, ACP will use the grant funds to buy the winning designs from five winners, for $5,000 each.  Then ACP will make those designs free to anyone. In order to make the winning designs even more useful, we're also working closely with the City of Alpine in the hope that some of the designs will be suitable to be adopted/pre-approved by the City so that the ADU/Backyard Cottage design and building process will be easier and quicker for families who need to provide housing for aging family or friends. 

Winners may be required to work with City of Alpine staff in order to make their designs suitable for City adoption/pre-approval (so that the designs are construction-ready). Unfortunately, no additional funds are available for this further work. Our hope is that the $5,000 award amount is enough that winners will be generous with their time in getting the plans construction-ready if necessary.

The winning Backyard Cottages will be designed to incorporate Universal Design Principles. Universal Design elements work well for people of every age, not just elders. Examples of Universal Design elements are no-step entries, wide hallways, lever door handles, varying counter heights, and curbless showers. Here's more information about Universal Design Principles.

Application Submission Process

• Anyone is welcome to submit a design. Students, design professionals, homeowners...anyone. 

• The application is only online and all documents will be submitted online, through Google Forms. Because there are attachments to submit, applicants will have to be able to sign in to Google. If you don't have a Google account, you will have to get one or submit your application using someone else's account. Please make sure you leave yourself enough time to work through any technical problems with the submission process. We can't accept late applications.

• The application does not require construction-ready documents; the design documents to be submitted are 

  1. A labeled scale drawing of the floor plan

  2. Scale drawing(s) of the interior elevations, with key features labled.

  3. Scale drawing(s) of the exterior elevations, with key features labeled.

  4. Rendering(s), with key features labeled.

Here's some inspiration from two (much bigger) cities that have been given this same AARP grant to run an ADU design competition --

San Antonio ADU Competition

Tucson Casita Model Plan Design Competition

Scoring Matrix

The judges are from a wide variety of professions, not just building professionals. Please make sure your design documents can be understood by a layman.

50% Effective Use of Universal Design Principles for Elders

20% Beauty

20% Connection with Outdoors

10% Ease of Dealing with Application (Organized, clear writing, clearly labeled drawings)

Important Dates

• October 25, noon CST Applications (with all attachments) due

The application is only online and all documents must be submitted online, through Google Forms. Because there are attachments to submit, applicants will have to be able to sign in to Google. If you don't have a Google account, you will have to get one or submit your application using someone else's Google account. Please make sure you leave yourself enough time to work through any technical problems with the submission process! 

• October 26-29 Applications checked for completeness

• October 30 Applications sent to judges (Applicants will be anonymous)

• November 5 Judges meet to score applications.

• November 10 Winners announced

If you have questions, please email kirsten@alpinecommunityprojects.org.

The application is only online and all documents will be submitted online, through Google Forms. Because there are attachments to submit, applicants will have to be able to sign in to Google. If you don't have a Google account, you will have to get one or submit your application using someone else's account. Please make sure you leave yourself enough time to work through any technical problems with the submission process. We can't accept late applications.