Impact by Design
When a house becomes a home, it’s a beautiful thing. Steffani Hines can attest to that. She and her children lease one side of Alley House—an affordable, eco-friendly, and energy-efficient duplex with a modern aesthetic, built on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. The duplex was designed, planned, and built by a team of Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning (ECAP) students, faculty leads, and community partners. Alley House was initially an ECAP student project for an international competition.
To Ms. Hines and her family, Alley House is home.
“The house has so many fun things about it. The natural light coming through the windows in the morning is a gift every day,” Ms. Hines said, adding how even the bookshelves in their home mean a lot to her family. “The kids sit on the floor and call me ‘library lady’ when I read to them. The kids and I celebrated our first Christmas at Alley House, and that was so big for our family.”
Another family leases the other side of Alley House, and both families are experiencing the financial, environmental, and quality-of-life benefits of sustainable housing.
With both units in the duplex designed to be energy efficient, the residents have low electricity bills. Alley House’s environmental impact is also low since the house was designed to use materials and systems that benefit human health and the climate. The duplex also has exterior spaces for outdoor activities, hosting guests, relaxation, and sustainable water management.
Alley House was ECAP’s entry in the 2023 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon® Build Challenge international competition, for which students created net-zero energy buildings powered by renewables as a part of their local community. The ECAP team was named the 2023 Build Challenge Overall Winner. Alley House also earned ECAP the Society of American Registered Architects National Award in October 2023 and the American Institute of Architects Indianapolis Design Excellence Award in January 2024.
ECAP’s community partners on Alley House were Englewood Community Development Corporation and Cedar Street Builders. Alley House is part of the Englewood Homes development.
Spurring Dialogue
ECAP has received several inquiries about the award-winning duplex’s energy efficiency, sustainability, affordability, and other aspects of the house and its design that can be replicated for the greater good.
One of those inquiries came from Ball State graduate Bernice Corley, ’96, and her husband, Todd Haulter. The couple wants to build an affordable, eco-friendly house on each of their lots. They own two lots near their home in the North Square neighborhood of Indianapolis, where they have concerns about gentrification in their community, Ms. Corley said.
“We also are very concerned about climate change, how housing contributes to climate change, and how the new housing stock, most of it, is not reflecting the reality of how houses can contribute greenhouse gases that negatively impact our climate,” she added.
When the couple searched online for information about affordable, energy-efficient, and sustainable housing in Indiana, Alley House was the top item on the search engine results page. That was the first time they learned about Alley House, and they were impressed with the duplex’s eco-friendly elements, modern look, and affordability, Ms. Corley said.
“Affordability of a house is not just whether you can get a reasonable interest rate on your mortgage. It’s a matter of whether you can afford to keep your home, eat, and do all of the things,” she added. “Utility bills are also a big part of that. Making utility costs affordable through energy-efficiency tools, like solar panels, is a huge part of being able to afford to keep your home.”
The couple hopes to partner with an entity or entities that can help them develop their properties with ‘green’ and affordable houses. To explore which eco-friendly aspects of Alley House they can incorporate into the houses they want to build, the couple had discussions with Professors Pam Harwood and Tom Collins, the ECAP faculty co-leads on Alley House, and Abigail Lane, ’16 MUR ’19, director of Near Eastside Initiatives with Englewood Community Development Corporation.
“Ball State students and faculty who were part of the Alley House design-build team are extremely proud of winning the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon®,” Prof. Harwood said. “But more importantly, we are delighted with the opportunity to impact affordable housing in Indiana, to demonstrate the importance of net-zero energy and low environmental impact design-build initiatives—and to see the impact Alley House is having on the families that now call this place their home.”
