New Hope in Holyoke: Partners Build Affordable Home

Construction is underway and a Holyoke couple is one step closer to purchasing an affordable home from Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity (GSHFH).

Students from the University of Massachusetts DesignBuild program help construct the modular home that will be delivered to the Holyoke build site.

Greater Springfield Habitat is working closely with Holyoke Housing Authority (HHA) and the University of Massachusetts DesignBuild program to make this opportunity possible for Pedro and Damaris. HHA donated the plot of land on Chestnut Street. UMass DesignBuild professors and students designed the modular home, are constructing it, and will oversee its delivery to the Holyoke site. Upon its arrival, GSHFH, which prepared the site and built the foundation, will complete utility connections, landscaping, and install appliances.

“This is a great collaboration to give the students practical, hands-on experience, and for Habitat to provide a home to a family that might not have qualified for one of our traditionally built homes,” said Aimee Giroux, GSHFH executive director. “Family size is one of many factors taken into consideration when building our homes and partnering with the future buyer. There is a need for affordable housing to benefit a variety of family sizes; not everyone needs three or four bedrooms. This project helps us to be able to make that happen.”

The design of the 575-square-foot modular home emphasizes energy efficiency via highly-insulated and air-sealed exterior assemblies, triple-glazed windows, all-electric appliances/utilities, and low-embodied carbon building materials, such as wood fiber, hemp, and straw, said Ben Leinfelder, construction manager of this year’s DesignBuild project and an alumnus of the program.

“We are chugging along right now and have our second group of students (the other half of the class) on the build site. It’s been great to introduce these eight students to our construction site, the tools of the trade, and to show off what their classmates completed in the first six-week session,” Ben said.

The decks and porch roof are framed and students are working on installing exterior trim and siding. Next up is drywall and siding.

“The challenge is keeping an eye on everything when I have pairs of students tackling different parts of the house and/or different kinds of tasks,” Ben said. “As this is an educational experience, I try to give the students some space to problem solve on their own – even make mistakes (that we then fix) – but ultimately, we want this to be a high-quality house for Pedro and Damaris.”

The house will feature design aspects specific to Pedro and Damaris, including a U-kitchen and interior stairs to the basement. The couple expressed a desire to one day finish the basement and turn it into a spare bedroom. By having an internal staircase, they have the ability to add more living space to the ground floor. The UMass DesignBuild team also allocated one of the donated windows to the lower level for that specific purpose.

“Every design is a matter of thinking about what would be most valuable within the given constraints,” said Naomi Darling, a design studio professor at Mount Holyoke College and the UMass Architecture Department. “We went back and forth between a bar kitchen and a U-kitchen. We ultimately decided on the U-kitchen because we understand both Pedro and Damaris really like to cook.”

The house is expected to be finished in autumn. To learn more about Greater Springfield Habitat’s homeownership program, visit habitatspringfield.org/how-to-apply