As housing affordability challenges remain in the national spotlight, it’s not just policymakers searching for solutions. College students—many of whom feel priced out of the very housing market they hope to soon enter—are stepping onto the frontlines themselves.
The Housing Innovation Challenge announced its inaugural cohort of 20 university teams from across the country who will compete to design, build and ultimately showcase attainable housing solutions in the competition’s inaugural host city—Charlotte, N.C. The national design-build competition brings together students, builders and industry innovators in what organizers describe as a long-term effort to reduce housing costs.
The Housing Innovation Challenge, established by the Housing Innovation Alliance, Meritage Homes and Home Technology Ventures, will culminate in a public exhibition in October 2027 of 10 selected university proposals that go from concept to full-scale construction. The homes will be sold after serving as living laboratories for tours, research and policy discussions.
“Students are living the consequences of today’s housing costs,” says Bobby Vance, assistant professor at Virginia Tech and competition director of the Housing Innovation Challenge. “Bringing them into the solution, side by side with the industry, creates a pipeline of leaders who understand innovation and attainability pressures firsthand.”
Strategizing Solutions
Last year, the median age of the first-time home buyer jumped to 40 years old, according to National Association of REALTORS® research. Homeownership has grown out of reach to more college graduates as home prices have surged.
In trying to find ways to lower the costs of ownership, teams will submit proposals by March 20.
“The proposals are going to be evaluated both on design quality and their ability to meaningfully address housing attainability,” Vance says. “That means we’re looking not only for the upfront construction costs, but also those long-term operational affordability, durability and total cost of ownership.” The competition is targeting housing aimed at the “missing middle”—homes attainable to households earning roughly 80% of an area’s median income.
Designs will be reviewed by a panel of city officials, industry leaders and academic experts, with the 10 university team finalists announced in May.
“We believe every family deserves to live better at a price they can afford,” Brett Welch, senior director of building science and innovation at Meritage Homes, said in a statement on the competition’s site. “However, construction practices haven’t significantly changed over the last 100 years to meet the demands of rising costs. The Challenge gives us a chance to engage people with new ideas and empower students and tradespeople to redefine how homes are made.”
Students are already experimenting with a wide range of ideas to lower costs, such as exploring different zoning strategies like “gentle density” into areas traditionally limited by single-family housing. Others are focusing their ideas more on system thinking, like passive design strategies, new efficient mechanical systems and ways to reduce long-term energy costs. Some teams are also exploring pre-manufacturing modular design elements with offsite construction that could lower building costs and speed delivery.
“The goal is not just to design ideas on paper, but actually be able to test them at full scale and demonstrate that these new housing solutions can actually be delivered in the real world,” Vance says.
A 10-Year ‘Playbook’ of Answers
The initiative is structured as a decade-long effort to accelerate housing innovation that tackles affordability. Charlotte will serve as the first host city, with the challenge moving to a new location every two years to test new ideas in different markets and regulatory environments across the country.
“Over time, we hope this creates a growing playbook of strategies that communities across the country can use to deliver more attainable housing,” Vance says. And so the students can design “the kind of homes that they might actually live in themselves—not at age 40 but actually at age 22 or 23 when they graduate.”
The Universities Competing
The 20 participating academic teams represent a broad cross-section of disciplines—from architecture, engineering and construction management to building performance and market analysis. Competing university teams include:
- Appalachian State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University
- Auburn University
- Brigham Young University
- University of California, Riverside
- Central Piedmont Community College – Honors Program
- Clemson University – College of Architecture, Art and Construction
- University of the District of Columbia
- University of Florida – Sustainability and the Built Environment
- Georgia Tech
- Harvard – Graduate School of Design
- University of Houston
- Kean University – School of Public Architecture
- Michigan State University and Ferris State University
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Virginia – School of Architecture
- Virginia Tech
- Washington State University
- Willamette University
