Green in Medusa

Building our Eco Nest, whats next...

View of proposed septic area.

Originally we were trying to break ground before winter so we could get a shell of a house up and it could be finished through the winter and into the spring and summer. It was defenitely a rush for us and all involved to get it done by then. However once we decided to build the home in the factory the pressure to be in the ground before winter was less. We can have the house built in factory with a minimal amount of finishing to be done on site. Hopefully we will be in our living room drinking lemonade with Joaquin in the summer. We are trying to shore up some issues at the moment the main one being our Septic system. We have spoken about some of these issues before but new ones keep coming up. Mainly getting the septic design approved. Most of the delays now are coming from technicalities associated in the permitting and local government approval. We are confident that they'll all be resolved soon. We are not on a deadline now so it should be OK. This gives us some extra time to research other technologies and products for our home. It also gives us time to come up with some new projects to tackle....

SIPS Vs. Modular: Tradeoffs

As their architects and friends we want to congratulate Stephenie and Baldomero and welcome Joaquin to this crazy world of ours. He’s one lucky kid.

Regarding Joaquin’s new house, we’re getting close to reaching a firm number although this pricing process has been especially challenging because for all the reasons B+S have written about to date. This post - long overdue - is to further define consequences of the team’s choice to work with module over SIPs. B+S explained the reasons we all selected modular – no matter how we ran the numbers a modular house is less expensive and has a smaller potential for cost overruns than SIPs. The variations in sustainable considerations – R-value, material content, construction waste – are impressive on both counts and therefore didn’t factor into the decision as much as the cost.

Most of the revisions that came out of our module decision are site and foundation based such as slab-on-grade versus Superiorwall foundation

One More Reason To Be Green....

photo: Baldomero Fernandez

We had our baby! His name is Joaquin and he was born on Friday November 9th, 2007. Words cannot express the joy and love that Steph and I are feeling. At the same time comes the realization that every decision we make from now on has to take our child into account. We owe it to him to leave this world a better place than the one we brought him into it. It’s the best inheritance we could ever leave.

•100 Ways to Save the Environment

Here are a few of our favorite organizations:
• National Resources Defense Council
•Terrapass
• Green Dimes
• Rain Forest Alliance

Fiber Cement Board - Simple Sustainable Siding Saves Cents

Fiber Cement Board treatments by Viroc.

There are several options for house siding that are economical and sustainable. Right now the two options we're considering  are Reclaimed Wood and Fiber Cement Board (FCB).

The nice thing about FCB is that its usually made with recycled content, has a long life span and requires little maintenance and is economical. The down side is the embodied energy in its creation, however much of the downside is equaled out by the great deal of waste that is recycled and does not end up in landfills. A great comparison of cladding materials can be found at the Minnesota Affordable Green Housing Guide.

Part of the house would be clad in FCB and the two sections that jut out (entrance and den) would be clad in reclaimed barn siding. Luckily we have a local source for that.

Designing a Septic System? Hold your breath...

We have our septic system design into the Albany County Health Department. We have gone through a couple of designs. There are several factors that had to be considered with our design. The soil on our property did not pass the percollation test. The soil is basically clay and does not drain well and we have a slope. Not good news for our budget. This means that we have to have a 5800+SF raised bed leach field, which also means we need to bring in top soil or fill and we also need a dosing chamber and pump. That probably equals an extra $20K

more after the jump...

American Consumption - American Self Portrait

photo: Chris Jordan

This may be off the topic of building a house but this blog is a fluid thing that will hopefully continually evolve. Next week we hope to bring you some posts relating to the construction of this house. We are awaiting a flood of hard numbers on what we are going to spend on and how we are going to build it.

In the meantime checkout the stunning and sobering photographs by photographer Chris Jordan. His series called, Running The Numbers : An American Self Portrait where he examines a disturbing aspect of contemporary American culture, through the austerity of statistics. The series evaluates the enormity of personal and national consumption. Each image portrays a specific quantity of a commonly consumed or used item in the United States: two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Images representing these quantities have different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.  Statistics feel abstract an anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, : Fifteen million sheets of office paper equaling five minutes of paper use; 106,000 aluminum cans representing thirty seconds of can consumption, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre Societal measures in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. These photographs have to be seen in person to really appreciate them, their scale is amazing. If you're in NYC or LA check them out at his galleries.

more after the jump...

The Kaufmann House - Love at First Site

photo:Julius Shulman

Stephenie and I first met in 2000 on a job out in California, it was a wonderful job because unbeknown to us we would get to spend our time getting to know each other at one of the most famous mid-century houses in the United States, the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs. We were working on location shooting fashion photos for a commercial client and we fell in love with each other at that house while we worked side by side, we still work that way often. So it was sad when we saw the article in the NY Times about the Kaufman House being up for auction because its owners are getting a divorce. Hopefully its new owners will show the same love for Neutra's masterpiece that its current owners have.