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Firm: El Dorado, Kansas City, Missouri
Team: Josh Shelton with Steve Salzer

Plenty of wealthy clients plow money into building their own personal nirvanas. The Echo Ridge duplexes in Topeka, Kansas, represent a different type of dream home: attractive low-income residences built on a shoestring budget, as green as they are affordable. Designed by El Dorado of Kansas City, Missouri, the four-unit prototype for the Topeka Housing Authority was completed with grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It adheres to Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, which address such noble concerns as energy efficiency, green materials and construction practices, and healthy living.

While all of that offers valid reasons for the project’s award-worthiness, what makes Echo Ridge such a stellar example of smart residential building is the firm’s application of modest gestures that dramatically alter living conditions for the occupants. By rotating the top storey of each unit 90 degrees, the architects realized numerous benefits: cross-ventilation for all major interior spaces, a shared courtyard, and an elevated terrace for each family.

Completed at two-thirds of what an average residential construction would cost, the two-bedroom duplexes, each measuring 114 square metres, contain a host of sustainable attributes, including a highly insulated envelope, geothermal systems, and green roofs that extend off each terrace. The vibrant results put some of the area’s more expensive neighbourhoods to shame. Here’s hoping we see more of these housing units soon.

THE FIRM With a head office in Kansas City and a satellite office in Wichita, Kansas, El Dorado has been busy changing the look and feel of middle America since 1996. The firm began as an architecture and metalworking studio, and now offers comprehensive design-build services and an extraordinarily diverse portfolio of work, from urban planning and innovative industrial facilities to community projects. ­

What the jury said:
“The composition of these volumes is wonderfully dynamic. It completely overturns any negative paradigm surrounding social housing, in a beautifully executed way.”
– Shirley Blumberg, KPMB Architects

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