Dan's House

 

I designed my friend Dan a house recently. This is a quick, one day design based on the earthship concept but entirely different too.
The entrance to the house is through a patio garden on the southwest (front) of the kitchen. The entrance features a distinctive gate set into garden walls and extra layers of shading on the portal to encourage summer dining on the patio. To the side of this garden is a small pathway which passes in front of the central greenhouse and its forward coldframe to a private outdoor deck for the master bedroom. The vertical-wall greenhouse DOES NOT OPEN TO THE HOUSE! Instead, it has a black hot water wall between the house and the the greenhouse (not visible from the living area) with windows above.

I bermed the north side 4' so I could bury water catchments and have constant temperatures there, and  built what appears to be a sunken patio (but is in fact on the same level plane as the rest of the house) on the north central section and framed views with a built-in bench and fireplace. I also drained that area so I could capture the most amount of snow possible for the catchment system.
The kitchen has a large storage area (8'x15') on the north side (also for the great temps and humidity) with small high windows above and to the outside for ventilation and natural light. The kitchen is open, with an island prep area that could also house the stove or sink depending on preference. The built-in breakfast area can also serve as a desk or a dining room table, with comfortable seating for 6.
The living room is entirely open with a fireplace. On either side of the fireplace are built-in bookshelves. The bedroom on the east has its own patio, which could easily be made totally private with the installation of a partial-height garden wall. It would also be a good place to add a outdoor shower. The bed is inset into a bay window so that nightstands are built-in with bookshelves to the sides and windows above. The fireplace in the bedroom is in front of the bed, also with bookshelves on either side. A large closet opens at a 45 degree angle to the north, as does the bathroom which could be elevated if needed for ease of installation of the cistern. There is a small patio outside this bath as well. An open shower allows this space to connect to the outdoors yet again, and since it is in the northeast with the graywater, catchment and cistern systems (below) minimizes the amount of plumbing required.
The house has a green roof planted with desert plants which reaches all the way down to the bermed area on the north, so the planted roof can be seemless with the ground, hopefully encouraging natural use of the structure by animals and insects, and the intermingling of plants as they seed. It is entirely feasible to add a earth-cooled ductwork system for natural cooling behind this wall.
As you may be able to see, I believe in creating spaces that can be opened up to be literally inside/outside at the same time, but that are totally naturally lit and ventillated too. I want, even in the throes of winter, to be warm, and to feel like I am one with the world around me. At Archinia, we find our greatest happiness when multiple utilities can be served by one material or design philosophy...
Thanks for checking this out. I hope this inspires you to create YOUR perfect oasis!!

Greenwashing in Design

One of the major problems I am having of late is the AMAZING amount of greenwashing that many architectural designers are doing to their product so people think they are getting green design when in fact, there's nothing green about it.

I will fight against this practice, and I'll give you tips and tricks to avoid it yourself.

First and foremost, let ZERO-E die. These houses start at $225 per square foot and they are NOT well designed. They work as long as they stay sealed. If you like the feel of a fresh breeze against your skin, forget about it.. these houses don't work with the windows open.

Second, if your designer cannot get beyond a double-frame wall and/or rigid insulation board, walk away. A double frame wall requires so much wood and the attachments to make it all stay together that you use up to 4x the amount of material than a simple vernacular designed house.There are simple earth-friendly walls that don't rely on rigid insulation (a petroleum product) or extensive materials. GO NATURAL!!!

And, finally... a sidenote - most houses don't take into account sound transmission, or STC Its something worth knowing about. And there's a cheap way to accomplish it - start saving anything cotton or denim for the walls around your bathroom, and for the walls around bedrooms. Stuff the fabric between these frame in these places for better insulation and sound reduction.

Kin Domain Design 101

A sample so you can see the process for establishing site design criteria, based on an ecological settlement in Taos, New Mexico. This works anywhere in the northern hemisphere. For SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE guidelines, flip the chart horizontally so north and south are reversed, but leave east and west the same.

First, draw 2 lines perpendicular to each other so you have a compass.

Then show the direction of the cold winter wind and the hot summer wind.

In Taos, the winter winds come from the NORTH, and the summer winds from the WEST across the vast hot desert. That makes the winds VERY hot and dry. This means that we don't want to open that side up any more than possible, should minimize openings there (to reduce both wind and solar concerns), and we should always open the EAST and NORTH windows so the natural wind pressure and direction will pull hot air out of our house naturally.

Then, we add the details... In the US, rain almost always comes from the EAST. We know that the sun is always in the SOUTH, so that's where was want to put deciduous trees and shading devices to help cool the house in summer. If we use deciduous trees or even flowering and fruiting trees like an orchard, we know that the shade will work only in the summer when it is needed. During the winter though, birds and animals can play in the naked tree branches and the sun can penetrate all the way to the house and allow for passive solar heating.
We know that the snow comes from the NORTH and EAST and that the NORTH side of the house is always shaded. So we want to drain our roofs to that northeast corner, and plant a nice grove of trees - and here we can use a bit more water loving trees since we have a natural advantage here. We can also put plants that need a bit more water here.

If we feel really ambitious, we can collect the water in the NORTHEAST corner, and a NORTH berm would also be an awesome addition, so we could keep the cold north winds off our walls, bury the catchment tanks, and keep the interior of those north walls closer to the natural earth temperature of 56 degrees. That will help keep the house cool in summer and not require so much heating in winter.
We can plant tender plants  - ones that may need a bit of shade and some protection from the wind - on the EAST.
That leaves the SOUTH and WEST for zeriscape drought, wind and heat-tolerant species.
Because our prettiest flowers and the coolest winds will be on the EAST, that's where we'll put the front door. Or... our master bedroom patio. We might put the front door on the southeast somehow then. That'll let us use the sun to our advantage when it snows too - this place will be the first warmed by the sun. if we use a dark-colored mass like stained concrete, we can encourage the sun to clear away the snow from the walk naturally.
We also know that we'd love to put the garage on the WEST and put small windows on its NORTH wall, and as low as possible. In a perfect world, we'll have small windows in the EAST wall too. Using any of these techniques on the garage will bring some decent natural ventilation which will keep the house cooler.

OK, so that's where we start with site design. There are totally different considerations once you add in hills, waterways, and the like... but this will give you a place to start with your own design, I hope!

Next post: Designing the house

The Non-House - alternatives for those who want to live outside the box

While we all love the idea of building our own homes, sometimes we don’t have the skillset, or desire, to do such a thing. Others of us must continue to work for the first few years while we pay off of the purchase of the land and allow the plantings to take root, and still others of us have a passion for old details that cannot be recreated in today’s environment. Many of us face building without the craftsmen that once lived where we are to support our efforts. Thus, here are a few architectural alternatives for your consideration.

Passive House/Zero-E design - for the modernist

So one of the troubles that we have with green design in the US right now is that it is wholly dependent on technology. Solar panels, radiant heat, low-e windows - all require massive inputs of technology and materials to produce.

One of the most interesting concepts we are using in the design of our modernist* kin domains today is called the Passive House, a concept introduced from Germany most recently (1996) and based on passive solar design, which is older than any nation you've ever heard of. In this technique, rather than depend on materials (because in our new way of thinking those are pre-determined by what you have around you), we pay close attention to two things: air infiltration and total energy consumption. This instantly rewards the owner with up to 50% energy savings annually.

To accomplish this, we:

New Kins Domain!

I prepared the preliminary sketch for this Kin Domain for a friend of mine today. This is an example of how the thought process of designing a site works, before we get into the design of the structure itself. This site is just under an acre and a half in size and located in Taos, New Mexico, US. Note that in this plan, the berry hedges are kept inside the fenceline by 5'. Many people miss in the books that Anastasia told us to set the berry fence inside the actual line of the property so that natural circulation paths could be provided between domains. This also helps in harvesting both sides of the bushes (of course, the birds and critters won't mind either! *smile* Also, I left the southwest side of the property open as it bounds an existing acequia (diverted stream) and the vegetation provides a habitat for nesting and migratory birds.

The suggestions for the building materials echo those of the Southwest Architectural Vernacular as well and those for the Arid Climate Region. The suggested plantings respond to plants that grow well in USDA Climate Zone 5, and are proven in New Mexico's arid conditions.

I offer this as an example of what can be done for very little investment. The actual drawing is 11 inches by 11 inches (in honor of today's lucky date!) and can be blown up to 24x24 - large enough for use in actual site layout. This work would take approx. 2 days, preferably with a site visit, and would cost $500. I did this completely by hand, as a means of showing what can be done onsite. Preliminary drawings are fine when done like this. For a project to be installed by contractors (rather than oneself), or for more formal design documents, we'd put all the drawings in CAD, at an hourly rate of $50.

Learning from the Past Series #1: Sufis: Spiritual Architecture by Samuel L. Lewis

As a young Sufi mureed, I was gifted a copy of Spiritual Architecture by Murshid Samuel L. Lewis. The text is an unpublished work included in the archives of the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society, where the murshid discusses the subtle lessons contained within the architecture of the past which might be used to inform the land and architecture we are designing today.

First, allow me to introduce you to the Sufis, in case you are not already aware of their importance. They are the gentle, ultra-compassionate esoteric sect of Islam, much as the Kabbalists are to the Jewish tradition and the Gnostics are to the Christian tradition. They study the texts of all religions, not just Islam, and they teach about the wise counsel from all the great teachers, including Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha, among many others. They see every breath and every moment of life as an opportunity to connect to Spirit. They sing their prayers, and spend a great deal of time reading and meditating. Because of their commitment to their practice, and years spent doing it (theirs could be described a culturally-integrated monastic existence) - they are very enlightened souls.

I honor the gift of this work, and in agreement with my initiator, will not post direct quotes from the work here. Rather, I will try and convey some of the lessons so that you might use them to benefit the spiritual essence of your Kin Domain. My own comments are included in parenthesis hereafter.

Arid & Mediterranean Climatic Zone Design Specifics

Weather

Temperatures in these zones range from 10 degrees to 120 degrees F. Sunshine is predominant, with over 85% of available hours bathed in clear skies and sunlight. The highest wind velocities are most often in afternoons during spring and fall. Winds over 20mph may be dust-laden. Night winds are often cooler, coming down from the mountains as the cool air is heavier and prone to behaving like water, flowing downhill. This can be used to advantage for nighttime cooling of structures if the buildings are at the base of mountains or within valleys.  These areas are prone to afternoon precipitation in summer “monsoon” season of June through August, if at all. Average yearly rainfall is usually under 20 inches, except in mountains, where snow is likely in winter. Water conservation, greywater use, and rainwater collection are vital. Low humidity allows for unique solutions in evaporative cooling.

The Hard Truth about ZeroE design

According to the US Department of Energy, a Zero Energy Home (ZEH) combines state-of-the-art, energy-efficient construction with renewable energy, such as solar water heating and solar electricity. It also uses Energy-Star rated appliances. While this sounds like a GREAT plan, and is, in theory… in practice, well, it’s just too dependent on “the illusion” of the world being exactly as it appears to be.

Technology is not the answer to all of society’s ills. While improving medical care and providing access to all kinds of information that we never had access to before, it actually ignores space and time and place. It allows us to use non-sustainable methods to make ourselves feel better about how much we take, while still taking. It uses products that are recycled and recyclable. That’s great. But why not use materials that decompose so there is no aftereffect? No shipping cost? That encourage sweat equity in lieu of buying your way into feeling green?

We can use products that minimize our dependence on cement, which causes 10% of the WORLD’s carbon dioxide emissions. We can harvest stone right off the ground. We can use adobe formed earth instead of plastic bags of earth.  We can stop putting metal over our doors and windows. Superinsulation is great. Earth insulation is better. We can keep rigid foam insulation, which is made from petrochemicals and often used for superinsulated roofs, out of out buildings.

The average cost for super insulation, PV and high-efficiency furnaces and windows as required by Zero-E is about $30,000 (US) as of 2009.  Ducts are made of metal, which must be mined, morphed, and shipped. The windows and doors have toxic gases in them to make them perform better. Solar PV uses more aluminum than metal in a new car. All these systems require some source of power to operate. Zero-E homes require a backup – you have to be connected to the grid. If you are connected to the grid, chances are you have to have electrical outlets every 7’ as required by code. Why live like that if you don’t want to?

I have a favorite story about technology and how much it helps people who truly live off the grid. A group of people that I love to support gave a reverse osmosis water system to a small school in South America so that the school could clean the rainwater it was already harvesting, make potable water, and sell it to their neighbors. It was SO cool and it worked! They made money for their programs and got new books and uniforms. Then one of the lines got a tiny crack in it. The system uses plastic parts. Plastic parts not available in the area and not patchable my any means they have access to. Now, the school has a very interesting piece of wall art that even if they could afford to fix, they couldn’t find anyone with the technical know-how or tools to repair. How’s that for “helping”? Technology is not always the answer. And it fails. Good design doesn't fail. It may not be perfect, but its a good place to start.

We can do better that that. And we can start now.

Choosing a building Site! Sneak Peak at one of the Chapters!!!

Oftentimes, the land is one of the least relevant features of a building. You get to choose between  property you have… or property you can afford. Sometimes though, that’s not enough. In those cases, the selection of the site can allow you to dream far bigger than you ever thought possible. Your real estate agent knows what generic home or land buyer X wants, and they know how to answer these questions:

Site Selection Conventional Criteria

Beauty

Views

Trees

Quality of Life

Neighbors

Proximity to Police, Fire, & Medicine

Schools

Shopping

Recreation

Investment

Property Values

Security

Taxes

Design

Codes and Covenants

Gas, Water, Sewer, Power

Roads & Transportation

Slope & drainage

These get to the meat of things. But what about the HEART of things? What’s missing? In Japan, every landscape is designed to play host to the god(s). There are mountains, valleys, waterfalls, streams, and abundant plants, especially flowering ones, which can delight the senses. There’s something to this practice, and when combined with an attention to ecology and relationship, they create a way of seeing the site of your new home in an entirely new way. 

How about adding these criteria to help you design the perfect space?

The New Paradigm

Energy Factors

Solar Exposure

Alternative Energy Sources

Greywater & Rainwater Harvesting

Location on Site (on-slope)

Natural Factors

Growing Season

Native Plants

Soil Conditions

Water Supply and Sourcing

Wildlife Habitat

Wind Exposure

Manmade Factors

Development Potential

Light Pollution

Sound Pollution

            Spiritual Factors

                        Community

Connection to heaven/earth

Connection to the Four Directions

Place for Spirit to Abide

Naturally Climatizing Your Home

You are wearing your clothes, a fuzzy robe, socks, furry slippers, and are tucked into a blanket. The tiny hair follicles on your arms and neck are standing at attention while a chill chases itself through your entire body. You shiver, curl up as tight as possible and start looking around for a blanket. It’s cold. Too cold.

Or alternatively, it is 90 degrees plus outside. It seems as if the thermometer might pop right off the wall. Sweat is dripping down the back of your legs, the fan is wheezing from how hard it is working, and there’s no hope in sight for any amount of relief.

When your heat or air conditioning fails, or isn’t available, you can use the techniques our grandparents used to heat or cool your home and provide some relief. Here are some tips and tricks that might help you navigate our sometimes challenging weather patterns
 
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The Recycled House

A client came to me recently with the challenge of all challenges. I was thrilled!!! This one required me to think so far outside of my own box that I was atwitter with expectation and excitement.The task? To design a cute little bungalow house. Out of recycled materials. Sounds like the green architecture we've all been hearing about, right? Not this time.My task? Design the home out of more than 50% found objects.This client has a passion for helping out his community. He's a huge fan of Habitat for Humanity. And in our very well-to-do community, Habitat has created a outlet store for recycled materials taken from renovations and tear-downs of Eagle and Lake county Colorado's incredibly beautiful homes.

Habitat Eagle County

The basic house will be designed with recycled-content materials. Though the sinks, countertops, toilets, wood ballusters, doors... are all to be from places like the Habitat store. Found objects, beautiful in their own right, and still very functional. So every room will be designed to a conceptual ideal, and then designed specifically to match the materials we discover on bi-weekly visits to the Habitat outlet and places like that.I'm very excited to see how this project goes. I imagine it is going to result in a project that is very fun to design, ending up with a functional and also slightly funky house. Which is perfect for this client - who is very artistic and definately and out-of the box thinker.

Selecting an Architect

Selecting and Architect is one of the single most important, and difficult, aspects of construction. There are lots of architects out there that are good at lots of different things. Some are generalists, and others specialize in certain aspects of design: like residential, commercial, or even more specifically - restaurants or religious design.

There are two main thought processes in architect selection.

Performance-based selection is when an Architect is selected based on his or her background and work history. The committee reviews and selects the Architect based on prior experience and interview connection. In residential design, it is often this connection - a natural ability to relate to one another - between the architect and the family that determines who gets selected.

Design-based selection is when an Architect is selected based on ideas they are asked to bring to the table before the project officially gets awarded. This concept is almost never used in residential design as most residential designers are not interested in "competing" for work. Sometimes in a large scale project (over $2million in construction costs), several Architects will be invited to participate in preliminary visioning, or even given a program to work with, and will provide very preliminary sketch ideas based on these criteria. Some Architects will do this for free, others will not. But a small fee in exchange for knowing that your Architect truly understands your vision before you get into a multi-year working relationship with them is sometimes very comforting, making this an ideal form of preliminary interview. An Architect Questionnaire is the first place to start in this process. This allows the committee to review side-by-side the qualifications of all the Architects without seeing the Architect’s portfolios, which can sometimes be so artfully created that the information you might be looking for may not be present. These documents describe the Architect’s education and firm experience, the team they propose for the project, list of related work, references, list of current workload, and a written commitment to attend all meetings. Once the Architect Questionnaires are reviewed and culled, a smaller group of potential Architects may be asked to submit portfolio materials.

Once 2-3 potential Architects are chosen, interview should take place, preferably on site, with entire Building and/or Planning Committee(s). You might make a list of potential questions for the Architect to answer, and send that ahead so they can thoughtfully prepare for the process. In my experience, the best interviews are not held to a strict regimental standard but are easy, flow, and might even take off on several different tangents. A great Architect will see this, and flow you right back into your next question so that they may address your concerns.

Once you have selected a preferred Architect, your chairperson will begin the process of contracting with them for their services. It is highly recommended that you use the AIA Contracting forms, which protect the rights and responsibilities of both the Architect and the Owner to the greatest extent possible. Most Architects will charge between 8-12% of the estimated construction cost for their work. A famous Architect will often charge between 12 and 15%.

Renovation is the greenest green of all

Collecting and transforming matter into usable materials for new buildings is the biggest part of the embodied energy equation for building. Re-invigorating well-built existing buildings is one way you can make a real difference. You won't use nearly as many new resources, and you can save a great deal of money. In new construction, the cost split between labor and materials is about 50-50; in renovation it is about 75% labor and 25% materials, and right now there are a lot of construction workers without jobs. So, you can do your part to save the world by staying right where you are, or close by, in a great old house that you can make shine... and save yourself quite a lot of money in the process.

Sample chapter (unedited) - Earthships

Earthships, which I will hereafter refer to as earthhomes, are a concept introduced in the 1970s, of using waste tires, glass bottles, and cans to create a structure that would be minimally impacting of the environment; off the grid and making its own water, heat and cooling. Exterior walls are constructed of earthfilled tires to provide thermal mass cooling and heating and interior walls are constructed of a honeycomb of empty cans and glass bottles. They are artistically beautiful and the houses appear to rise out of the earth as if by natural commandment.

I have some concerns with earthships, not the least of which is that the term is trademarked and only legal to use if the structure is designed by Michael Reynolds or Earthships Biotecture. I live and breathe them everyday here in Taos, NM and I listen to my friends and clients frustrate about how their homes do not function as designed.

Pros (in theory, but only works in some climates, see notes below)
Energy efficiency: the buildings utilize solar and/or geothermal heat, cooling and hot water, and provide rain and greywater harvesting.
Self-sustainability: grow veggies inside, use and reuse water, and minimize impact on the environment.
Ease of construction: anyone can build an earthhome. If you can pound dirt, you can do it!
Recycling: all the materials, except the clays, come from used products that would otherwise fill up a landfill. Unfortunately, the steel cans and glass bottles they were recycling with almost no recycle cost in the 1970s are not nearly as available today.

Cons
There is actually NO cost savings in designing and building an earthhome over a conventional home or other type, unless you can perform 100% of the work and obtain all the products yourself. Plan on $150 per square foot, minimum.
What they do not tell you is that once the earthhome settles, the breakdown of the rubber tires, which by nature was already in process, now happens in an enclosed environment. Which means, the gas expelled by the tires as they disintegrate collects in the walls, and then suddenly the walls start “farting” from time to time, farting toxic vapors that make people sick. And it is not easy to control whether the gas is expelled inside or out. Choose your poison - poison your self or your environment.
In a humid environment, earthhomes, being within the ground, collect water along their interior wall surfaces, forming a vertical pool for molds and algaes to grow, and often secretly, within the walls of your planting areas, so that (usually) edible plants are infected or overwatered.
In a dry environment, like New Mexico, it is not physically possible to collect enough rainwater to support the house. Many who have earthhomes have to get in their cars, drive 30 minutes to town each way, and buy water just to survive, let alone wash dishes or laundry. The result is that the people that live on the mesa are identified by their tendency to be constantly dirty and having their own special brand of body funk.
Because earthhomes are not designed in concert with the land around them in most cases, and landscaping is just not a concern, they tend to have hot and cold spots. In the summer the galleries at the south wall, where the slanted windows are, are stiflingly hot and humid. The heat is not sweltering in winter, but neither is it comfortable. Also in the winter, because there are not many windows in the north-side rooms, which include ALL of the living spaces, the north ends of the rooms stay at or near earth temperature, that being about 50 degrees. So you have to have a sweater in part of the house and then you strip to your skivvies to pass through to another part of the house and then need your sweater again to settle into that room.
I have never seen a solidly built, leakless, or easy to repair design. The roofs ALWAYS leak.
The pumps to run the greywater and rainwater harvesting mechanisms are LOUD.
They are considered “experimental architecture” and building codes are not designed for experiments. Many locations do not even allow them.
Financing for experiments is rarely available. You will have to find a very special kind of banker to even consider this investment.
It is very challenging to resell an earthhome.
It is very, very challenging to obtain insurance for an earthhome.
Every piece is custom constructed and therefore comes with custom time and custom cost. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, that is great. If you are on a budget, that is not.

Followup
Because I love the look and ability to do-it-yourself qualities of earthships, and I do believe that these projects work in some areas, I offer this advice…

In a temperate or hot environment, with regular rainfall of over 50 inches per year (that falls on the ground – places like Tucson have nearly 80 inches of rain per year, of which 11 hits the ground after evaporation), with plenty of trees, if you are definitely considering landscaping, and are willing to battle the city or county, insurance companies, and banker for your ability to build it, an earthhome might be a good investment. You must live in a place where the home can: be elevated off the valley floor, have excellent access to ventilation (too much can be controlled with trees), have an open face to the south, and have near constant humidity of less than 60%. Slanted windows are NOT a good idea in any environment and shading will be required on south-facing windows. It is critical that a good passive solar designer or architect be involved to make the earthship right for your region. Prepackaged kits will just NOT work for all environments. Cool environments and those with constant humidity set earthhome type architecture up for failure. A viable, proven alternative to the pressed earth in the tires, for those of you who have off-gassing concerns, is adobe. Rammed earth and earthbags are also viable options.

Definitely use the ideas from earthships, including wetlands for greywater harvesting, recycled bottle and can walls, and good passive design techniques as part of your design. Earthship, for all their faults, are a GREAT please to start and find some really wonderful ideas.