North St. Louis County Habitat for Humanity

By Isaac Mathison-Bowie
Construction Manager

When it comes to designing and developing homes, Habitat for Humanity has been guided by three principles since its founding: simple, decent, affordable. These three words are a kind of shorthand for our building philosophy. At North St. Louis County Habitat for Humanity, we do our best to let them lead our choices today. We make design choices that are repeatable in order to save time and money and straightforward enough for a first-time volunteer to perform any given task at any stage of the project. At the same time, we give our partner families options to make some decisions in design to personalize their future home. In the end, many hands and entities influence the design of our homes. Our hope is that they turn out to be functional, comfortable, and a beautifying presence in their communities.

Most of our houses have the same footprint: 42 feet long by 26 feet wide. We perform the formwork and foundation work ourselves, so keeping the dimensions the same across projects lets our repeat volunteers and staff become more efficient at the forming process. Almost every home we build is a three-bedroom, one-bath house, with around 1,100 square feet of finished space. All our homes also include a covered, open front porch to provide a space for the families to spend time outside and interact with their neighbors.

Beyond these ground rules, however, there are options for a partner family to customize their houses within some set parameters. We use several different floor plans that can be flipped and mirrored as the site allows. While they generally end up with similarly apportioned spaces, some plans have slightly larger or smaller kitchen or living areas. Some feature a more open floor plan, some have more privacy, more or less closet storage, and bathroom space. We follow a set of universal design standards for the width of our always and doorways and space within our bathrooms. These standards end up determining some of the layout choices in our design.

We include the partner family in the design process from pre-construction to completion. Families can choose their floor plan as the site allows. They also make some decisions regarding details, including siding color, shingle color, entry door design, cabinet/countertop color and hardware, lighting fixtures, and trim finishes. For choices like siding and shingle color, we provide a palate of colors for the homebuyer—this makes some of the decisions less overwhelming and allows us to reuse leftover materials. For choices like lighting fixtures, the families are given a budget to work with.

The end result of this collaborative approach to design is that each of our houses are familiar but personal. The replicability of our homes gives our city and community partners an understanding of what to expect when we propose a new project. The partner family gets to be involved in the process and move into a house that feels more like theirs. Above all, sticking to the principles of simple, decent, and affordable allows us to create as many opportunities for homeownership as we can while delivering a home that our partner families can be proud of.