Since his beginnings as an architect and teacher 25 years ago, Robert Charest has been on a quest to revolutionize living spaces by combining elegant design with the sustainable infrastructure needed to construct dwellings that will work for the 21st century and beyond.

Charest has pursued these goals in professional practice with his firm, Atelier Charest and Associates, and in the classroom, where he urges Elon students to think about living spaces in new ways.

This spring, he and the students in his Sustainable Design Technologies course are tackling an exciting challenge. They will construct the first student-designed residence in the new Tiny House Living and Learning Community at Loy Farm, a property near campus that acts as a living laboratory for Elon students and faculty.

“This is as exciting as teaching architecture gets,” says Charest. “Even in architecture schools, the architects who teach never get asked to design a building on campus. It just doesn’t happen. It blows my mind that Elon is so forward-thinking and wants to invest in a project like this for our students.”

It will be a model for how to design houses that are beautiful and comfortable to live in, that are energy efficient, and that contribute to the current discussion of how we can live more harmoniously with the planet.

Last fall, teams of students in the Art of Sustainable Architecture course designed three prototype tiny houses — or compact affordable dwellings, as Charest calls them — for sustainable, comfortable living at Loy Farm. Each was designed to house two students and includes a common area, economy kitchen and bathroom.

One of those designs is a single-story, 500-square-foot home that Charest perfected this winter to ensure net-zero energy consumption via solar and geothermal energy.

The building materials will also be sustainable. Built on pilotis, or piers, and raised several feet off the ground, it will include a wrap-around porch and covered patio that acts as an extra room for gatherings, studying or solitude.

Future phases of the living learning community will include up to a dozen residences and a community center for gatherings and public events.

“We are building this on campus but we’re doing this for the world,” Charest says. “It will be a model for how to design houses that are beautiful and comfortable to live in, that are energy efficient, and that contribute to the current discussion of how we can live more harmoniously with the planet. We have to innovate very creative and very simple solutions to make this happen.”

That level of innovation begins by giving students the freedom to explore ideas beyond their perceived limits. First-year students in Charest’s class were tasked with designing the homes and incorporating feedback from President Connie Ledoux Book about her vision for the living learning community. Most had enrolled without knowing their final projects would be permanent additions to Elon’s campus.

Now in his 12th year at Elon and a cofounder of the Environmental Center at Loy Farm, Charest has been part of the community long enough to see many great ideas find their moment and become reality in and beyond the classroom.

“These kinds of projects put our students’ young, agile and enthusiastic minds to solving a problem, and we see that being fruitful in so many areas,” he says. “It’s incredible how many of my colleagues at Elon do these same kinds of things: They challenge their students to solve real problems in creative, concrete and tangible ways. It’s incredible what they can do.

“At Elon, an idea catches hold, and we seem to have the ability, the resources and the will to make it happen.”