Rammed Earth is for Everyone!

If you're into rammed earth building, don't miss this blog: Rammed Earth is for Everyone. You can't beat the enthusiasm of that name! The site highlights rammed earth projects all around the world, offers nice Youtube and Flickr finds, and has a great selection of links in its sidebar. It's proprietor is a rammed earth consultant who shares both interesting technical information as well as an intriguing and thought provoking world view. Definitely worth a look if you're an earth building enthusiast and/or you find yourself pondering the nature of man's impact on the Earth on a regular basis.

Via Earth Architecture (of course!).

Rammed Earth Homes With SIREWALLs from Terra Firma Builders Ltd.

I've admired rammed earth homes for a long time, even though they're not really appropriate for the climate I live in. It's just that rammed earth walls are mesmerizing to look at. I get lost staring at the different layers of soil, in varying subtle shades of earth tone, flowing gracefully along along a wall. To my eye, rammed earth walls epitomize the very essence of natural beauty.

I can't think of any rammed earth builder that does it better than Terra Firma Builders Ltd. They have a way of crafting the most gracefully curved walls. Their designs blend with the surrounding landscape. Inside, massive earthen walls and sturdy timbers comfortably intertwine with delicate, artistic finishing. It's a totally unique aesthetic.










Terra Firma's website is fantastic. There's a wealth of images of their work in their portfolio. There's also a great explanation of why rammed earth is an effective, sustainable building solution.

Probably the most interesting thing I found on their site is that they use an unusual insulated rammed earth wall approach called SIREWALL (SIRE = Stabilized Insulated Rammed Earth). SIREWALL was developed by Meyer Krayenhoff, an environmental builder of over thirty years, who also founded Terra Firma. Here's an explanation from the SIREWALL site:

Stabilized, Insulated, Rammed Earth (SIRE) walls are made using rebar and insulation enveloped with the mass of 14 – 20 inches of rammed earth. This combination, along with SIREWALL®’s system for quality control and soil blending, builds walls that exceed current standards for energy efficiency and compressive strength. SIREWALL’s customizable forms refined over the last fifteen years by SIREWALL’s expert builders, work seamlessly with unique designs and modern finishes that have timeless appeal.

I always thought that would work. We've seen that concept applied to concrete walls, so why not rammed earth too? Actually, reading their FAQ, and noting that they're in Canada and do their building in British Columbia, I've learned that rammed earth can be a solution for climates other than hot, arid deserts, especially with the SIREWALL approach in place.

Note that Terra Firma builds complete homes only on their home turf. But they will build walls elsewhere, and let your builder finish the house. They also train and certify builders in the SIREWALL system, and offer design and consulting services. Wherever you are, whatever type of rammed earth project you might be considering, I think these would be the people to talk to.

I have new hope of living in a rammed earth house yet!

Image credits - Terra Firma site

Soren Korsgaard's Woven House

I was looking at Soren Korsgaard's MySpace page. His mood is "happy," he thinks TV is "all crap!" (except for The Office), and his Zodiac sign is Aquarius. He's single. He's six feet tall. His architecture is brilliant.

Soren's MySpace page showcases his work, and has some things I hadn't seen on his website. In particular, I was immediately taken with his Woven House concept.





I asked him about it. He said:

Concept

A house designed as a showcase to promote bamboo as sustainable building material, must be unusual and eye-catching.

Bamboo has been used for making everything from kitchenware to buildings for thousands of years in most Asian countries. Among the many beautiful methods of treating bamboo, highly sophisticated weaving techniques have been developed. Woven house is an attempt to take this tradition and use it in modern architecture and in a much larger scale than anyone have ever seen before. Birds are using weaving for making their nest from materials in their habitats.

Using the unique flexibility and strength of bamboo for weaving a vacation house, that appears futuristic and dynamic and gives a unique architectural experience, where walls, floors and ceiling is one continuously surface, that also can be shaped into sitting areas and shelves.

The woven bamboo surface can be a closed surface or open to let in light.

Location:

Can be anywhere in south – and Southeast Asia. Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia. Most importantly in an area where there is a tradition of weaving bamboo, and on a site where Bamboo is growing, so less transport is needed, meaning less impact on nature.

Construction:

Heat shaped construction bamboo is used for making the framework of the building.

Roof is covered with bamboo shingles. Internal walls, floor and ceiling is woven bamboo. And in between there is lots of space for insulation.

It's a nest. For people. Soren, dude, you're blowing me away. That's totally cool.

I only hope a Panda Bear won't eat it. The big, bad wolf has nothing on a hungry Panda.

Great Green Home in British Columbia - The Andrew Powter House

Today I got a huge boost - something to get me posting again! I was so excited to receive a nice e-mail from a reader of this blog, Andrew Powter, who has been kind enough to share with me images of his own house. It's being built in British Columbia, Canada, and Andrew is hoping to break ground later this month!

Take a look at how cool this place is:









But the house isn't just a flashy modern pad, it's loaded with environmentally conscious design features, such as:

• Reclaimed cedar siding
• Concrete floors with hydronic radiant heat
• Recessed compact fluorescent lighting
• Ecosmart fireplace
• Double glazed windows
• Construction with insulated concrete forms
  
• Low-flow toilets, faucets and showers
• On-demand hot water heating
• Good passive solar heat gain
  

Nice, huh! This is a very inspiring home. That's such a good list of green features, and all things that can be incorporated into any style home, anywhere. This home is a great model for the way we should be building all homes.

Andrew is the homeowner. He's working with Mark Simone of Dynamedia. Take a look at the portfolio on their site. Some nice stuff. Some real talent there.

Well, I just feel great. Andrew, thanks so much for sharing these pics and letting me post them up! I can't wait to see how your house progresses. It looks great and you've done a fantastic job including green elements in your home.

Image credits - Andrew Powter

Great List of Ten Things from Good Human

Here's a nice list of ten things you can do to make your home more eco-friendly, from the Good Human.

1. Use only low-VOC interior paints and wood sealants.
2. Go with spray foam insulation
3. Radiant heat
4. Make sure your windows and doors are sealed.
5. Use compact fluorescent lightbulbs
6. Buy Energy Star Appliances
7. Use reclaimed wood as much as possible
8. Open up those windows to improve indoor air quality
9. Build with finished concrete
10. Install Low flow plumbing fixtures and water filters

Great list! Do just a couple of these and you're on your way to a healthier and more efficient home. Do them all and you're my hero!

Layers Man, Layers - The Amazing Wall House by Frohn & Rojas

I'm so tired of living in a regular American house - 2,200 square feet, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 baths, study, basement - blah, blah, blah . When I see something really different I get excited. I am so blown away by this house in Chile by FAR - Frohn & Rojas that I saw on Your Abode .... Environmentality. The Wall House defies convention in so many ways. It's one of the most impressively different and innovative homes I've seen yet.





I really can't describe it any better than what FAR has written on their site:

"Suburban residence. As opposed to the general notion that our living environments can be properly described and designed “in plan”, this project is a design investigation into how the qualitative aspects of the wall, as a complex membrane, structure our social interactions and climatic relationships and enable specific ecologies to develop. The project breaks down the “traditional” walls of a house into a series of four delaminated layers ( concrete cave, stacked shelving, milky shell, soft skin ) in between which the different spaces of the house slip. From the inside out the layers build upon one another, both materially and geometrically, blurring the boundary between the interior and the exterior and creating, through the specificity of the different materials used (many of which are not common in architectural applications), a series of qualitatively distinct environments. The building's most standout feature, an energy screen typically used in greenhouse construction, constitutes the outermost layer, creating not only a diffused lighting and comfortably climatized zone inside but also, through its folding and sometimes- reflective/sometimes-translucent surface, contributes to the diamond-cut appearance of the structure."

Suburban residence?????? Not in my neighborhood, unfortunately. I applaud the approach, the originality, the materials, the style, the unconventional take. Just out of this world cool.










I love the idea of layers. That's something different for a house. It works for clothing, it should work for a house too. I don't think the outer "soft skin" would last long in a Michigan winter. But I don't know why we can't build a house that can adapt and change more for the seasons with multiple layers, maybe some that are removable/retractable/reconfigurable to respond to different climate conditions for different times of the year. Why just have one wall system that has to do it all, all the time? Something to think about.

The Wall House is something really different and very intriguing. I'm still continually amazed by how many unique solutions there are to the problem of housing, and I'm hopeful that we'll open our minds to the possibilities.

Via Your Abode .... Environmentality.

Image credits - FAR site

Go Underground with Architect Malcolm Wells

When I was in middle school my science teacher, Mr. O'Leary, showed the class a film about an underground house (this was back in the '80s, with the really bad projectors and everything). The movie was all about how underground houses are not cold, dark, or wet. Rather, they can be very inviting and very energy efficient. In retrospect, Mr. O'Leary was a pretty cool guy, and I think now he showed us that film because he wanted to live in an underground house. Can't blame him.

In college I came across the work of architect Malcolm Wells. If you want to learn about underground houses, run - do not walk, to your nearest library and find one of his books. Wells has been a genuine pioneer and his work in underground or earth sheltered building, and passive solar design has inspired so many people for many years. He's done a ton of great books, full of his brilliant designs and illustrations. I used to keep checking this one out of the Purdue library, over and over. My name must have been on the book card twenty times by the time I graduated (yeah, back then they didn't just scan the ISBN number into the computer, you signed a little card in a pocket in the book's back cover, for you youngsters who've never heard of such a crazy thing).




Wells has done several notable homes, most famous of which is probably this one on Cape Cod. Lovely, isn't it? Wells is a beautiful artist. His books are filled with his wonderful sketches. Very inspiring.




I like his vision. Change from the sad old spec house (like the one I live in right now) to something natural, beautiful, and efficient.




Wells is really one of the greats. As far as natural housing goes, don't miss out on his work. Check out his website, and go find some of his books. You'll really like them, and you'll learn a lot.

Image credits - Malcolm Wells' site

Green in the UK - ZEDFactory Ltd.

The UK is one country that's really, really caught the bug when it comes to green building. The nation appears poised to take a real leadership role, and there's a lot of great stuff happening there. It tends to be a little groovier, and usually a whole lot greener, than what's coming out of the USA. Not that we don't have great stuff here - we do - but I like what I see the Brits doing.

Here's a great example of the UK's finest: ZEDfactory Ltd. ZED stands for Zero (fossil) Energy Development. The firm does everything from urban design and master planning to multi-family residences to individual homes to eco-refurb to landscaping. Everything is low energy / low impact.

In the HomeZED, timberframe construction is combined with high thermal mass and heavy insulation. Passive strategies compliment the construction methods for simple, natural heating and cooling. The home has ample daylighting, and produces more than its own energy needs via renewable energy sources and sells the excess back to the grid. Prototypes are already being built. I think a HomeZED would be well suited to our climate here in southeast Michigan , and I could definitely see myself living in one.






Here are two other examples of ZED's great green homes:

The stunning, earth sheltered "Bath Springs" house (I'd move in here in a heartbeat).




The RuralZED Carbon Neutral Kit Home - a timberframe kit house with "fully integrated renewable micro-generation technology." These houses are highly flexible and can be built by the DIY types, or by developers who choose to combine them into multi-family units.






Shouldn't every neighborhood look more like that? I really like what ZED is doing. Their homes look very practical. I think this is what the future of green design really looks like - affordable and realistic, yet not sacrificing in sustainability. Something that is adaptable to differing development scenarios. I hope to see more work like theirs here in the United States.

Image credits - ZEDfactory Ltd. site

Flat Roofs are "Flat Out Better"

The flat roof is a defacto modern standard. Curiously, it's often hotly debated whether a flat roof is better than a pitched roof, or if it is an inferior design. Personally, I like them. So I was very happy to read this post, Flat Out Better, on the great blog From the Ground Up. If you haven't been following it, From the Ground Up chronicles the design and construction of a modern home in Minnesota - a nice one. And it has a flat roof, as many modern homes do.




Here's an excerpt from the post, explaining why flat roofs are a great way to go:

"What you never seem to hear about flat roofs are all the great benefits they have over pitched roofs. Flat roofs are generally better insulated than pitched roofs which leads to reduced heating and cooling needs. Although they generally cost more to install they usually last much longer before needing to be replaced and can reduce your heating and cooling needs. Many flat roofs can be designed and engineered to incorporate green areas that reduce the over-all Carbon foot print of the home, as well as utilizing the space for functional or entertaining purposes. And if that doesn’t convince you than maybe this will — most insurance companies offer a discount on your rates if you have a flat roofs as they are less likely to suffer from wind or hail damage and often times more resistant to fire."

Very interesting. There's a lot more to the post, so click on over and check out the whole story. If you're designing your modern home and wanted a flat roof, but were afraid of doing it because you'd heard a lot of negative things about them, this article helps explain what to watch out for, and why flat roofs are a good option.

Image credit - From the Ground Up site

Ane Weissheimer in Brazil - Modern Stunner

So, the other day I mentioned my friend and colleague Fernando, who is from Brazil. He's the friend I am sending on a mission to find the Slice House, because he lives in the city where it is. Anyway, I was talking to him and showing him my site, when he mentions that his wife is an architect. How cool! And she's just done a house for her sister, who lives in Camaqua, Brazil. Here are some pics Fernando sent me today.








Stunning, isn't it. Fernando's wife certainly has an eye for spectacular modern style. Her name is Ane Weissheimer, and she practices in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I'd like to learn more about her work. It's very interesting to see how houses in different parts of the world are constructed (I threw in some of the construction pics too). You don't see very many concrete houses like this one in the USA. The house is just now about 95 percent complete, and the homeowners are moving in.

It's so fun to meet people from different parts of the world. The company I work for is very international, and meeting nice people like Fernando is a real perk of my job. The training program Fernando and I are on is taking us to some interesting places. We're going to India next month, and possibly Slovenia in August or September. I bet I'll see some really interesting stuff along the way. Maybe something more for this blog. We'll see ...

Image credits - Ane Weissheimer

Great Little Stone House in Texas - Designed by Architect Chris Krager of KRDB

As I often do, I was watching HGTV's show Small Space Big Style (episode HSSBS-410), and was very happy to find this hip little stone house in Texas. Besides its great modern style, modest footprint (1,000 sq-ft), and simple plan, I really like the massive walls. Made of large stone blocks, lifted and set in place by the owner and friends (with lots of determined DIY elbow grease ), the house blends well with the rugged surroundings of the site. It's a very natural construction method that is quite appropriate for the hot, dry climate of the site. It looks amazing too.






Inside, the house has a single great room for living, cooking and dining, and two small bedrooms in the back; one for parents and one for their two small sons. The bathroom is in between the two bedrooms. The large expanse of glass on the great room looks out onto a nice landscape, and combines with a cantilevered patio to melt away the differences between inside and out, and expand the effective living area. It looks like a very casual and comfortable little house. Definitely not short on style.





The house was designed by Chris Krager of KRDB. The firm does slick modernist housing that is also meant to be affordable to people on real budgets. Great looking stuff. You can see more images of this stone house and other awesome projects on the KRDB site - the URL is lividpencil.com - how cool is that!

You can also see a lot more nice pics on the owner's site, Primitive Modern. I was figuring the house to be a vacation cottage, but actually I was wrong. On the KRDB site this house is called the "San Marcos Guest House." When I contacted the owner, Max, he sent me some pics of the house, and the new main house that is being built nearby. Max and his family have been living in their future guest house while their regular house is being built.





Pretty nice, huh? Max says it is almost done, and I can't wait to see what the completed house is like. I see that it has the same great modern style and rugged stone walls. But I'm still most infatuated with the little guest house. I like its natural stone walls, its simple style, and the fact that the owners did so much of the construction themselves. It must be very satisfying to build with your own two hands, using the simplest construction material offered by nature, one that will stand the test of time.

Image credits - Small Space Big Style (HGTV site), Primitive Modern site

Inspiration from Detroit's Past - Frank Lloyd Wright's Cooperative Homesteads Project

Okay. Confession time. No, I am not from California, or Oregon, or New York City. I'm not a trendy design professional, I'm not an architect, I don't come from a family of builders. Guess what I do for a living. C'mon - guess! Here it is: I'm an autoworker, and I live in Detroit.

Now, Detroit is not the pit that most people from other parts of the country think it is. The city has had a lot of rough times, true, but actually it's an alright place to live (I really appreciated this article in Dwell about Detroit). The weather is really nice here too. Kind of wet, with cold winters, but we really don't get too much snow and summertime is a dream. Spring and fall are both lovely. Actually, I grew up close to Ann Arbor, which is pretty groovy. It's where all the hippies go to engineering school, at U of M, although I went to Purdue, but anyway.

So yeah, I'm an autoworker. I don't work "on the line" or anything, but I am in the biz. My company makes car parts (darn good ones too!). And I live in the burbs of Detroit. And even though I've forever dreamed of moving to California I will always have a soft spot for my hometown.

And that's one reason I've always been fascinated by a certain Frank Lloyd Wright project from the late thirties / early forties, planned for Detroit, but never built. It's the Cooperative Homesteads Project. Wright and his team from Taliesin designed it for a coop formed of auto workers and teachers - idealists, consistent with the times (unions, socialism, progressives, artists, etc.). It was intended to offer quality but low cost housing these people could afford, in a planned community where they could return home from their factory jobs and then tend their shared gardens in Detroit's long summer evenings, growing much of their own food.




The project, was an experiment that was way ahead of its time. Not so much the community planning aspect, which is so of the era it is kind of cliche, but rather in its construction and aesthetic.

First of all, the homes were going to have rammed earth walls. That's right, rammed earth walls. Wright was experimenting with it at the time, and was going to use it in the project as a low cost wall system the future homeowners could erect themselves. Second, Wright employed earth berming to help further protect the walls, provide extra insulation, and block cold winter winds. A broad roof was planned to further shelter the earthen walls from Detroit's damp weather, and keep out summer sun.

Inside, the house had small bedrooms, one large main living space, built-in furniture, and a great hearth. Natural light came in from windows on both sides, and there was a bank of nice big floor-to-ceiling windows in the main living area. There was an attached shed/cellar for storing tools and vegetables from the garden. The homes look extremely livable, despite their compact size.





Ultimately, World War II intervened, and the project was abandoned. A few units were actually started, but never finished (apparently the yet unprotected walls literally washed away from exposure). It is sad, because for a small worker's home the design was truly modern and beautiful. A simple, modest home, but really sleek. I've always thought it was one of the coolest designs Wright had done. It appeals to my populist streak, but with high style.

In his wonderful book, The Natural House, Wright mentions the project, and commented that "the nature of the scheme is apropos to so much of the building problem in our country that it is on record here for what it may be worth." Sadly, I think not much has changed, and so I present the project here as an interesting example of elegant, thoughtful, paradigm challenging, affordable housing concept that should continue to inspire us.

I think the project is also discussed in the great book on Wright's Usonian Houses written by John Sergeant.

You can read a nice writeup on the project at the website of Aaron G. Green Associates Inc. Mr. Green was a student of Wright and worked on the project. Click here to jump straight to the Cooperative Homesteads page.

Image credits - Aaron G. Green Associates, Inc. site

CNNMoney.com - Is 'Going Green' Worth the Cost?

Here's an interesting article on CNNMoney.com about building a green home: Your Home: Is 'Going Green' Worth The Cost?

It's a nice overview of why regular people all over the U.S. are starting to choose more environmentally friendly and energy efficient construction techniques for their homes. It also talks about what it costs to do so, and what the payback is. Nothing earth-shattering here, just a good piece on how and why green building practices are starting to hit the mainstream.

There's also a section profiling four families that have gone green with their homes, all for different reasons. What's nice to see is that these are just regular families on regular budgets. They've done it (to one degree or another), and so can any of us.

New Video Preview of Building Green - First Full Season Coming Very Soon on PBS

Folks, don't forget to check your local TV listings next week - Building Green is coming soon on PBS. Take a look at this just-released preview of their upcoming first season:





Host Kevin Contreras' house is wonderfully green, and so beautiful. But did you watch the whole clip? Because if you didn't, and if your tastes are on the groovier side (like mine), you'll really like the last few seconds. There are shots of some really eco-hip modern homes that you won't want to miss, and that have me looking forward to catching every episode of Building Green.

I've seen a few of the pilot episodes and they were really good. I'm told they've re-edited the shows for this first full season and that they're even better - plus there are new episodes that didn't air in the pilot run. It's looking like a great first season. The episodes are set to start airing sometime this month on PBS, so check your local listings.

Straw bale walls, blue jean insulation, natural finishes, radiant floors - OH MY!

Tune in to Building Green!

Don't Forget to Turn Your House Off

Here's a great idea, a whole house on-off switch. So many of our appliances are really still on and using power even when they're supposedly "off." This nifty switch lets you truly turn off the whole house when you leave or go to bed. Critical appliances can be plugged into a few particular outlets outside the whole house switch's circuit. We're in a wired world, and you'd have to plan carefully what could and couldn't be placed on such a circuit, for practical purposes. But just like anything else, clever design and careful planning are what make the difference between good and great. This is a really clever idea that's worth more consideration. It just shows how we could make a real difference by just taking a fresh look at the things we take as a given.




Via treehugger. Also see Yanko Design.

Image credit - Yanko Design post

Modern Landscaping on Hive Modular House - Rosenlof/Lucas Get it Right!

I get a lot of inspiration from Preston over at Jetson Green. His site is really great, and he's so good at finding neat stuff. Yesterday he had post where he's run across a great blog, Nashville Modern Prefab, and put up a YouTube video of a 3-D model of a new Hive Modular house being built for the blog's author, plus links to some other Hive Modular related videos. Great stuff.

I have to say, I really liked the video of the original Hive Modular B-Line House prototype in Minneapolis (below). It's done as a video invite to an open house featuring the B-Line as well as the cool modern landscaping done by Rosenlof/Lucas Landscape Design and Installation. I love the house, as I've posted before, but the landscaping was what really caught my eye.





I love the low-impact driveway and the gabion fence. Both those designs are now stored away in my mind for use on my family's future home. These guys are doing some cool stuff. You've got to take a look at the photos of their work on their site - 49 pics in their slide show - and click over to the rolu|dsng blog. You will love it. Not to be missed.

Landscaping is so critical. Your house has to harmonize with the site, and your landscaping has to respect the site as well as enhance the structure of the house. All the pieces need to fit together. A big lawn and a long, hard-surfaced driveway can be very high impact. The guys at rolu show how to put it all together, in modern style, with clever green designs. Just awesome.

Natural and Elegant Living in an EcoNest

If you want a truly green home take a look at the work of builder Robert Laporte, a pioneer in natural building, and his wife Paula Baker-Laporte, an architect and healthy home advocate. Together they teamed up to create the EcoNest Company, which delivers some of the most naturally elegant homes you will ever see.

The homes are crafted using traditional timber frame and clay/straw construction, methods researched and refined by Laporte over twenty five years. EcoNest construction uses only natural materials and the homes are very finely crafted. Non-toxic finishes are used throughout. The clay/straw walls, finished with natural plasters, breathe well and the design and construction of the homes make them very energy efficient. The walls have an R-24 insulation value, and perform even better than they are rated due to the thermal mass inherent in this type of construction. The houses all have a good "hat and boots" - generous roof overhangs and carefully designed foundations that protect the natural walls from the elements. The homes are strong, built to last, and they blend easily into the surrounding landscape.





EcoNest designs show great sensitivity to healthy living, both for the occupants and for the planet. They have a very organic feel, and many have an elegant and serene Japanese style. Probably the best word to describe the homes is "peaceful." Houses are sited carefully to harmonize with the land and they're modestly sized to keep a respectful footprint. They are always bright inside, flooded with natural light from excellent daylighting and careful window placement. Again, only non-toxic materials and finishes are used throughout.

Take a look at some EcoNest interiors:




Truly, these homes live lightly on the planet and make every effort to be healthy to live in, both in body and spirit. Each design is very personalized for the owners. They represent a high level of care in design and craftsmanship in construction. Though the building methods are literally old world, they're well proven and very properly done under the expertise of the EcoNest Company. There's no doubt that the house of the future can learn a lot from the past. If you want a very unique and natural home of the highest quality, an EcoNest could be for you.

Image credits - EcoNest Company site

Great Book: Redux - Designs That Reuse, Recycle and Reveal

A key element of green building is reuse or recycling of materials that are already converted. Salvaging materials otherwise destined for the dump can help you save money and reduce the total embodied energy of your home. And it's usually a very opportunistic sort of thing, which ultimately gives each project its own unique character.

That's exactly the point of a fantastic book by Jennifer Roberts: Redux - Designs That Reuse, Recycle and Reveal. I like that a lot, but it's the "reveal" part that I like best. The book gives readers one example after another of eco-hip homes bursting with personality as well as environmentally friendly design and construction.


Redux's three main sections cover Renovation, Adaptation and New Construction. For every project featured there is a specific rundown of what reclaimed materials were employed, a "reuse recap," as well as a list of other green features. Scattered throughout Redux's 160 pages you'll also find little sidebars called the "Inside Scoop" which include real gems of wisdom including, among others, "tips for buying salvaged wood," "old stuff to be wary of," and "tax deduction for deconstruction." The many, many color pictures throughout the book are guaranteed to inspire.

Two firms that feature prominently in the book are Leger Wanaselja Architecture and Arkin/Tilt Architects. Both are masters of green design and make substantial use of reclaimed materials in the homes they do. In fact, I think it's safe to say they've taken it to a high art form, and the result is distinct styles that cannot be mistaken for the work of anyone else.

Here's just a couple examples of the works of each that are featured in the book:

The Dwight Way project in Berkeley by Leger Wanaselja is a remodel/addition urban infill project that features nine housing units. Besides adapting a rundown site on a brownfield property, the architects used old car parts, old street signs, salvaged wood and high recycled content in countertops, insulation, and concrete. Some of that reuse is subtle, but some of it is right in front of you. Not subtle, but not in your face. It looks great. All I can say is that this is one of the coolest places I've ever seen and that I'd move in there in a heartbeat just from seeing the pictures.




Arkin/Tilt's D'Souza / De La Torre Residence is a new construction suburban family residence. You simply cannot look anywhere in this house without spotting recycled materials, though everything looks completely appropriate and tasteful. Wall and bookshelf framing is reclaimed wood. Trusses are from salvaged beams. Old vinegar barrels were deployed as ceiling decking. The garage doors were taken from an old elementary school. The roof shingles are made of recycled tire rubber. Kitchen counters are made from recycled glass. The house also uses solar electricity from grid-intertied PV panels, a most excellent geothermal system, and a unique staircase / cooling tower for natural ventilation. It's also modestly sized at 1823 square feet. Perfect! This is what suburban homes should all be like!




Other great homes featured in the book include OMD's amazing Seatrain House, Locus Architecture's groovy nowhaus 01, and many more.

Redux is a fabulous book. It's definitely in my top three favorites and I simply cannot recommend it highly enough. Pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed.

Image Credits - Amazon.com listing, Leger Wanaselja site, Arkin/Tilt Site

For a Better Abode - Check out Your Abode

I'm having a banner week finding great new blogs dedicated to modern, green housing. Today I came across a great blog called Your Abode .... Environmentality. It's done by the Australian duo of Sharon Hamilton and Darryn Parkinson who have a residential design firm with a "practical environmental focus." Their practice is called, you guessed it, your abode.

I like the team's emphasis on residential work. They have a unique and appealing niche:

"We’re the middle ground between an architect and a builder. Our clients get an integrated and complete residential design service including interior design plus project management and construction. We are here to take the pain out of the process by making
it easier for you, ensuring that you have an enjoyable experience along the way.

We will ensure all of your space works for you, optimising your enjoyment of living in your home. The magic comes when the space you live in actually feels right, just because every part of the space is used to its optimum.
The basis of all our designs is to build upon YOUR needs and wants – using our experience and expertise to ask the right questions and find the best design solutions.
All our designs are unique and individual, we’ll never do exactly the same thing twice
– how could we? every site and every lifestyle is as different as the next. That’s why we view each project as it comes and start from scratch – with a fresh and energetic outlook.

We bring a practical environmental focus to all of our work. Good environmental design is all about creating spaces that are healthy for you to live in, as well as being good for the environment. We do this by designing spaces to be comfortable all year round and by making use of environmentally friendly materials, finishes and fittings."

Sounds great! You'll like what you see on their site, so do click over. The blog is great too. It covers architecture, green design and building products, green energy, books, and more. Definitely give it a look!

Take a Look at Shigeru Ban's Furniture House 1

I know I've gone on and on in this blog about Shigeru Ban's Naked House. It continues to just amaze me the way Ban deconstructed the typical family home and recreated it in this elegant , glowing, minimalist form. So cool.

Today Inhabitat had a nice piece on Ban's Curtain Wall House - another highly unconventional and beautiful home. It reminded me to visit his site again and take a look at other houses he's done. You know, he has done just a ton of cool houses. The one I like the best (other than the Naked House, my all time favorite) is the modest and simple Furniture House 1. It has a marvelously clean and peaceful look, but without pretense or formality. That's hard to do with minimalist modern homes. Too often they come off as cold and museum like. Ban shows the same touch here that he does in the Naked House - just perfect.




Furniture House One employs a kind of unique prefab, structural wall/furnishing strategy that's worth a look. Here's a description of the house and system from Shigeru Ban's site:

"The construction system for the Furniture House features factory produced full-height units that function as structural elements as well as space-defining elements. Since these units are pre-fabricated, construction time on-site is greatly reduced and cost-effective. Serving both as the furniture and as the building material, these units enable a reduction of equipment and labor, as well. (The dimensions of the units used in this house are 2.4 meters high, 0.9 meters wide, with an 0.45 meters depth for bookcases and a 690mm depth for other units.) An individual unit, weighing about 79.2kg, can be easily handled by a single person, and its self-supporting function makes the arrangement simple."

This same system was used in the construction of several subsequent versions of the home. In one interesting variation (below) built in China, Ban used laminated bamboo for pretty much the entire home, from structure to interior and exterior finishes. It's just another example of the master at work, exploring and innovating. Pretty impressive.



Image Credits - Shigeru Ban site