For our first chicken coop design and build competition, we partnered with Architecture for Humanity for this event that raised $2,000 for Seattle Tilth’s Seattle Youth Garden Works, who help introduce homeless and under served youth to urban agriculture.
Ten chicken coops were entered by everyone from families to large architecture firms and demonstrated lots of interesting innovations including living roofs, hidden storage, and reused building materials.
The Judges Prize, and the coveted Egg Nest Trophy, went to Coop15 for “Eggplant”.
Most innovative prize went to “Chicken Haus” by Callison.
Best use of Integrative Structures and Systems went to “Huevos Ranchero” by VIA Architecture
The Malden Group won two awards, for their “Malden Coop”. The “Most Likely to Hypnotize a Chicken” award and the People’s Choice Award.
The coops are on display through mid August, at the Farm, located at 5513 South Cloverdale Ave in Rainer Beach. Then they will be distributed to neighborhood groups and families in the area.
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I’m wondering if the contest is open to the general public, or just to design pros?
We just did a design for a coop in rwanda for an orphanage:
http://www.castarchitecture.com/blog/chicken-coop-for-the-institute-for-womens-excellence-rwamagana-rwanda/
A nice idea.
We once planned a children’s animal garden (little scale, just a few animals) as part of a pilot project Living with Children in cities, initiated by the State of Slesvig Holstein in Germany. The location was the city of Lubeck in northern Germany.
We could not realise that part of the project though, because in a close by animal farm for children some sheep and lambs had been stolen – the animals’ future ended most probably that very night – leaving both the owner of the farm and the children devastated.
This was in 2009 and it was NOT in an area where hunger is a daily routine.
Sometimes creative and positive ideas are being transformed into something very different to the original intentions.
Do you want chickens in the coop?
Thank you everyone for your insightful comments. We’d like to receive the coops without chickens. We anticipate that they may be onsite for quite some time and we’d like to wait to assign layers to teh coops once they have been placed in their permanent locations.
We’re looking forward to all the creative entries!
I hope the low cost portion of the design weighs heavily in the competition as most of the urban chicken trend lends itself toward expensive, boutique, products and processes rather then actually raising lower priced food. This is from a chicken owner with a large flock, a chicken share, and large garden but a high grain/feed cost. It’s a fun hobby but isn’t saving any money, just improving quality.
It made a good graphic, but the rooster in the picture are not allowed in Seattle chicken regs.