App Builds a Home

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App Builds A Home is a campus-wide partnership with Watauga County Habitat to build a Habitat home for a local family in need. The students, faculty, and staff of Appalachian State University are coming together to design, fund, and build the home.

App Builds a Home
Welcomes New Students at Orientation!

Come learn about App Builds a Home which is a campus/community partnership with Watauga County Habitat for Humanity. The entire campus is coming together to design, fund and build a Habitat home for a local family in need. You can support this unique initiative by

Taking a photo with the “Welcome Home” Yosef House for a suggested donation
Buying items from the art sale located in the International Hallway (a portion of the proceeds will directly benefit App Builds a Home and the rest will support student artists!)

When you come to App State you not only come to the Appalachian community but the Boone community as well! This is a great way to give back to the place you or your student will call home for the next few years!

You don't need to go far to see the poverty in Watauga County and the need for affordable housing. Right now, Watauga Habitat can only afford to build one house per year by themselves, but we are going to double that! Boone has welcomed us into their community and now it's time to give back!

Learn more about Watauga County Habitat for Humanity and their impact on their webpage.

Boone Build Bowl Brawl Winners

Round 2 of the Boone Build Bowl Brawl was a success! The event took place on Tuesday, July 16th at 10 High Country Lanes. The tourney consisted of 11 faculty and staff teams and a total of 48 people. Together we raised $581.73 for App Builds a Home! App Builds a Home appreciates the support of 10 High Country Lanes and all of the following offices for their participation:

AAOC

ACT

Bookstore

COB

E&L

Fast BS (Business Systems Office)

Office of Research

Psychology

Purchasing

UREC

The first place winner who will claim the hard hat prize is Fast BS! We look forward to partnering with 10 High Country Lanes in the fall so be sure to spread the word and challenge your coworkers to Round 3!

2 days ago

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Round 2 of the Office vs. Office Boone Build Bowl Brawl Happening July 16th

Hello Bowlers!

Round 2 of the Boone Build Bowl Brawl will be taking place Tuesday, July 16th at 6 pm at 10 High Country Lanes. Spread the word to your coworkers! Tickets will be $20 which will include 2 games and shoes. Tickets can be purchased in the ACT office from now until Friday, July 5th. All proceeds will benefit App Builds a Home.

We hope to see you there!

Jun 27

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App Builds a Home is making fundraising progress! We invite you to be a part of the journey with us!

Jun 14

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Calling all Bowlers!

Round 2 of the Office vs. Office Boone Build Bowl Brawl will be taking place Tuesday, July 16th at 6 pm at 10 High Country Lanes. Spread the word to your coworkers! Tickets will be $20 which will include 2 games and shoes. Tickets can be purchased in the ACT office from now until Friday, June 28th. All proceeds will benefit App Builds a Home.

We hope to see you there!

Jun 11

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Partnership with IDEXlab for App Builds a Home

App Designed, App Funded, App Built. The motto of App Builds a Home revolves around the idea of the Appalachian community coming together for every aspect of this project. With this goal in mind, it was very exciting to learn that IDEXlab was willing to partner with us to provide a design for the App Builds a Home Habitat house. IDEXlab is a unique experience in the Building Science program where students plan, design, build, and commission real life projects for clients. Consisting of students from various disciplines, these students work together to develop a concept, program, and design direction for each project. The IDEXlab members involved in the planning of App Builds a Home included Joey Shawley, Lert Ratanaamornkun, Jake Haire, Sophia Mazurek, Christian Bocchino, Vadessa Risner, and Michelle Stanziola. The team is led by faculty members Jason Miller, Chelsea Helms, and Jamie Russell and graduate assistants Brittany Auten, Rowan Parris, and Behnam Shokri Sereshkeh. The group worked hard to create the right design for Habitat.

The process for designing the home included weekly critiques. The team developed a concept of a “Catalog Home” in which the home has the potential to be customized over time to fit the liking of the homeowners. This design also has the ability to be Net Zero Ready, focusing on systems and materials that promote efficiency and sustainability. The App Builds a Home design presented several challenges according to Michelle Stanziola, one of the IDEXlab students working on the home design. She said the main challenge was introducing sustainability without disturbing the rhythm already set in place. It was also important to ensure the systems and materials used didn't sacrifice affordability. Given Habitat for Humanity’s focus on providing affordable housing for families, this is an incredibly important part of the design. An iteration of this design was also submitted by IDEXlab in the 2019 Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, a competition in which teams must design highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. App Builds a Home could not have asked for a better team to create an incredible design for this exciting project! To learn more about IDEXlab, visit their website at https://www.theidexlab.com/

Jun 10

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Come Visit with us at the June First Friday Event in Downtown Boone

App Builds A Home will be at the Turchin Center during the First Friday Art Crawl on June 7th. Stop by to get a preview of the house design for App Builds A Home designed by the IDEXlab team at Appalachian!