The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will host the Innovative Housing Showcase on the National Mall for the fourth time, hoping to build on the success of the 2023 event. The public event raises awareness of innovative and affordable housing designs and technologies that have the potential to increase housing supply, lower the cost of construction, increase energy efficiency and resilience, and reduce housing expenses for owners and renters.
“The [Innovative Housing] Showcase last year was our biggest yet, and we hope this year will be bigger. What we are very excited about is bringing technology and innovation that people can touch, feel, and explore to the National Mall to [help] understand how important technology and innovation are in meeting our nation’s housing supply challenges,” Solomon Greene, principal deputy assistant secretary for policy development and research at HUD, told BUILDER.
More than 4,000 policymakers, housing industry representatives, and members of the public and 50 exhibitors participated in the 2023 event on the National Mall. The 2024 event, which will take place June 7 to 9, will feature full-sized prototype homes, innovative technologies, and educational programming highlighting technologies and innovation.
“Last year and this year we are leaning into energy-efficiency improvements and climate resiliency priorities for HUD, growing challenges that climate-related hazards present to our housing stock, and how housing technology and innovation can play a role [in solutions],” Greene said.
For HUD, the Showcase allows it to highlight innovation, technologies, and new ideas while also featuring the organization’s partnerships with the private sector, nonprofit sector, and other federal agencies.
“When you think about HUD’s mission of quality [affordable] homes for all, it’s so important to showcase new construction technologies that can help us deliver on that promise,” Greene said. “We go beyond just the housing supply element to look at climate, at accessibility of units. We try and feature technologies that can make housing more resilient to natural disasters, more energy efficiency, more affordable, and accessible to people of all incomes and abilities.”
HUD published a Notice in the Federal Registrar seeking exhibitors to participate at the 2024 Innovative Housing Showcase. The deadline for proposals is March 29. Greene said HUD hopes for a greater diversity of exhibitors, both in technologies and solutions as well as in geographies.
Greene said HUD plans to build out a more robust education programming offering this year, addressing a wider range of topics.
“Innovation is more than just the building materials and construction methods. It requires financing, it involves supporting an innovation ecosystem, it involves partnerships, [and it involves] addressing regulatory barriers,” Greene said. “We want to use the programming to broaden the public’s understanding around what can foster this innovation and leverage the innovation we have to address housing supply, affordability, and sustainability issues.”
