Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology (Crosshatch) is seeking architectural design services for a stand-alone residential unit, which will serve as the anchor for a comprehensive campus (XH Campus) to follow. This document includes information about the larger campus in order to provide context, but the RFP is solely for the design of the residential unit.
Crosshatch is a rural development non-profit that has been working for 19 years to build strong communities through the intersections of art, farming, ecology, and economy. We create programs designed to get to the root of the rural: thriving place-based cultures and economies, built around regenerative agriculture, arts, craft, and light industry, that attract skilled creatives, give residents a compelling vision of rural life, and that speak authentically to this place and its people. Despite our name, Crosshatch has never been located in a “center”—rather, we’ve partnered with farmers, small businesses, and local non-profits around the 10-county region to bring our programming to the community.
Now that’s all about to change. Crosshatch is developing a 52-acre campus—a rural innovation hub + makerspace + artist residency + regenerative farm + arts and education center—just outside the Village of Bellaire, adjacent to Glacial Hills Natural Area.
The XH Campus will host a community of co-learners, providing both locals and visitors with access to a wide variety of tools, the education to use them, and a network of people with shared interests. The XH Campus will incubate entrepreneurs—a kind of homegrown development model that hatches new businesses while creating a culture of community connections.
Crosshatch is taking a phased approach to this big vision. The core of phase one is a residential unit that will act as the hub of activity on the property.
Our goal is to design and build a stand-alone residential unit that:
Is completed on-time (before July 1, 2026) and at or under our budget of $550,000
Is a complete and finished building that also allows for future expansion
Meets the design criteria below.
Follows Davis-Bacon labor standards.
The objective of this Request for Proposal is to locate a source that will provide the best overall value to Crosshatch. While price is a significant factor, other criteria will form the basis of our award decision, as more fully described in the Evaluation Factors section of this Request for Proposal below.