Students Pitch New Paths to Housing Affordability at Hack-A-House 2026

The competition, held in Salt Lake City, challenged participants to deliver practical, scalable solutions across three core pillars: finance, policy reform, and construction design. Winning teams walked away with $3,000 prizes and a ticket to the Ivory Prize Summit on Oct. 14 at Arizona State University, where they will compete for a final $2,000 Grand Prize.

In the finance category, the University of North Carolina’s Hacking Heels team earned the top spot for a strategy focused on building wealth for manufactured-home owners. UC Berkeley dominated the policy and design sectors; their team, Alare, proposed a streamlined, concurrent review process for affordable housing approvals in Colorado, while the Bear Necessities team took the ThinkWood Housing Innovation Award for a modular interface system. Meanwhile, the University of Arizona’s Outside the Box team secured the construction category by proposing modular solutions that repurpose underutilized commercial real estate for workforce housing.

Ian Cahoon, Director of Strategic Projects at Ivory Innovations, noted that the event aims to bridge the gap between academic imagination and the harsh realities of the housing market. By focusing on real-world constraints, the organizers hope to cultivate a pipeline of leaders capable of lowering costs and expanding access to housing. The public can continue to influence the outcome by casting votes for the People’s Choice award through Oct. 5.