With our project on hold the mortgage market a mess and summer going we are thinking how we can make our project better and yes dreaming. Or brother-in-law scoped some very cool pools on Daily Green so here are a few of our favorites. We can totally see one of these in front of our house as we sit in an inner tube sipping on Arnold Palmers. Is it too early to start thinking of summer?
The Cellophane House
I just got back from the Museum of Modern Art's - Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. They are having their member's preview today and the show opens on Sun. July 20th. The exhibition features five contemporary prefabricated houses constructed in the outdoor space to the west of the main Museum building, continuing MoMA's rich history of presenting full-scale architectural projects. Five individuals and architecture firms have been given the opportunity to deploy both commercially viable domestic creations and entirely new, speculative prototypes. Also in the exhibit on the 6th floor of the main building is what I found to be the more interesting part of the show. It is a concise history of prefabricated housing since its origins in 1833. As always the museum had some fascinating original art, sketches and plans by the likes of Frank LLoyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, and even Thomas Edison, who had developed and built prefabricated concrete houses. There are also some very interesting films and archival footage on Prefabrication. Whether you like these architects and the concept of Pre-Fab or not, the show is worth visiting. For me it was a really cool way to spend a hot day with my son.
more after the jump...
Its a good thing we didn't rush into the ground this past fall, we have had to change our plans slightly. We have been having problems getting a septic design approved by the county that we were comfortable with. We wanted a septic system that would be gravity fed so that it would be simpler and require less maintenance. The alternative recommended by the civil engineer required a pump and dosing chamber. In order to achieve our goals and those of the health department we had to compromise and move the location of the house. Lynn Gaffney our architect came up with a wonderful solution by moving the house about ten+ yards uphill onto a high flat spot in the trees. In the end we prefer the new design and location. It provides a sense of coziness as its nestled partly among the evergreens. However this new design will require more site work than before and we will need to move trees. Transplnting the trees was something we were going to do in the future anyway to give us more privacy between us and our neighbor. So it looks like a win win. Now we just need to find a tree service with a tree spade big enough to move our trees.
Happy New Year! We've been preoccupied with the baby and the holidays but now its time to get back on top of everything. After consulting with the Center for Ecological Technology (CET) about helping us with LEED certification for the house we figured we could acheive a high degree of LEED certification for our house as its designed now. While going for Platinum level would be great we're are not sure we can do it on the limited budget we are aiming for. So GOLD is our aim. Mainly it will be a matter of documentation and site management . We are still awaitng our septic system to be approved, something that has been holding up the process, then we can get our building permits final excavation an septic bids and then on to financing.... We will then put in our application for LEED and Energy Star Certification another goal we have. We'll give you an update on how this whole process unfolds. Its an involved but interesting process.
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
Since we started this process we have been following some really cool green building projects and it seems there are more everyday. The more we look the more we find...the web is a big place.
•Sycamore House
•PreFab Project
•Luminhaus
•The Longhouse
•Austin Mod House
•Sjodin Dream Home
•Maine Solar House
•Earthaven
This project is a constant balancing act. Every decision has to be weighed against several other factors that are often in direct opposition to each other, how does it fit within our budget, how green is it, how much embodied energy is attached, how will it wear, how will it look, how much does it cost, how much will it cost "installed" , and then in the end again its how much is it going to cost? There is never a real answer and probably won't be until you pay the final bill. Estimates are just that, estimates. One of the main reasons for wanting to build this house out of SIP's or Modular prefab is that much of the variables of building are taken out because you know that those specific elements will be done hopefully to spec. in the factory at a pre-determined cost. Luckily we have a great architect that designed a house that would be flexible in the future and could be built in a variety of ways including modular.
The idea of Traditional or OVE (Optimum Value Engineered ) stick building, built by hand on site no longer has the appeal it once did. There is a tremendous amount of waste involved when building on site, even with a well intentioned and experienced builder who is committed to building "green". In addition there is the potential nightmare of cost overruns. Steph and I both work in a production environment where there is always a budget to adhere to and nothing makes us more upset than going over-budget, we both pride ourselves for coming in "on budget".
We kind of jumped the gun on this one but we had to. Its probably not advisable to start buying your fixtures before you construct your home lest you seem like a TV commercial. However sometimes opportunities arise that you just have to take advantage of. Lynn had recommended we go to Poughkeepsie to the warehouse where Get Real Surfaces manufactures their amazing concrete products and have a look at some of their "seconds" items. It took me a few weeks to finally make it but when I did I was incredibly happy and excited. I was guided around this wonderland of lovely concrete tubs, sinks, tiles and other miscellaneous things by George and Yvonne they were really great and very helpful. The products in the graveyard are seconds that were slightly the wrong color for certain custom orders or just had slight imperfections and are at DEEPLY discounted prices. Here is were I found the sinks for our bathrooms and tub. The tub is a gorgeous four and a half foot concrete soaking tub reminiscent of an Ofuro Tub it holds approximately 75 gallons of water and weighs 975lbs without any water in it. Its heavy! They only had two of them and were having a sale the next day so I bought the tub and two sinks pretty much on the spot without exactly having our house completely designed yet. Had it not been for these finds in their graveyard there would have been absolutely no way we could have afforded them on our budget. We had them delivered the other day by a local with a boom truck and they are now sitting peacefully in our field awaiting a home. Will post some good pics of the sinks down the line.
One of the main design principles we want to incorporate into our new home is Passive Solar Heating. The idea is that in the winter we will be able to harness the suns energy to heat or help heat our home. We will start by orienting most of the windows in the house and the house itself to the south this way we will have direct gain. Direct gain is radiant heat resulting from sunlight admitted directly to the living spaces through south-facing windows, which warms the interior surfaces (walls, furniture, floors, etc.). For direct gain, the south-facing window area must be sized for the climate, the type of window used and the amount of thermal mass in the home. For thermal mass we plan on having a thick concrete slab that will absorb as much of the heat from the sun as possible. Thermal mass allows saved solar energy to heat the house at night or on cloudy days. The combination increases the performance and energy-saving characteristics of the home, hopefully only for a modest cost increase. We also plan on slightly skewing the shape of the bottom level of this two level house so that the top level will create the the overhangs that are necessary to keep the house from overheating during the summer months when the sun is the highest. In the winter when the sun is the lowest the house will have the most amount of direct gain into the living areas. This along with radiant floor heating, a wood burning stove, highly insulated walls, windows with Low-E coating, and a properly ventilated house to distribute the heat evenly should be sufficient to keep the house warm and cozy in the winter. In the summer ceiling fans and open windows would be enough to keep the house comfortable and cool.
illustrations - North Carolina Solar Center
Originally we thought of building a PreFab house, there are so many nice ones to choose from: Dwell House, Pinc House, WeeHouses, and many more check out the FabPreFab List . They are all highly customizeable and conceivably you could configure them from your computer leaving you to just worry about site prep, foundation and utility tie in. On some models you could specify that they be built with sustainable materials. Not a bad idea until you start to add it up, even on the cheapest side we were looking at over $300 per square foot which is totally out of our price range considering we originally wanted a home in the 2000 sf range. They are a great option as the entire structure is pre-fabricated off site trucked in and installed in a matter of weeks instead months. We realized at this point we should start interviewing architects and see if there was a way around spending that much money while still achieving everything we wanted.
