Maybe this isn’t so related to architecture. Except that my main interest in architecture deals with making it more…natural. Less toxic.

Also I live under the brown smog mantle that embraces LA like a cancer hug. So for God’s sake convert your car to run on electricity already so that we can drop the incidence of lung cancer a little bit. Please.

Here’s how. It’s not that hard. And if I hadn’t already sold my car, I’d do it too.

…and people in Los Angeles want something natural.

Check out this local business I just learned about called Farmscape.

Farmscape installs raised-bed vegetable gardens in front or back yards and offers organic-method garden maintenance and consulting. Our business aims to increase the accessibility and quality of sustainably-grown food in the Los Angeles area.

Check out this timelapse installation.

Farmscape will reduce the complexity and geographic sprawl of your food supply. You and your household can learn by example how to grow your favorite fruits and vegetables the simple way. As a member of our service, you can rely on our friendly service staff to ensure your garden thrives even if you’re often too busy to look after the pest control, soil amendments, harvesting, etc.

I just read this article in Natural Home Magazine about designing with daylight. I love the historical tidbit:

The Romans used sunlight as a material, like brick or stone, to define and enhance space. “In Pompeii, courtyards brought daylight and fresh air into the center of the home so light became internal and no longer focused on the periphery,” Pittsburgh architect Gerard Damiani says. “It becomes a private thing the homeowner can share with guests, like a piece of furniture.”

This article has a LOT of great tips on how to design with daylight. Check it out!

I just read this article in Natural Home Magazine about Builders of Hope. They save homes – and their fixtures – from the landfill.

Americans demolish some 250,000 homes annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and many of them are more solidly built than the new structures that replace them. Though in recent years developers have increased efforts to salvage reusable items such as bathtubs, light fixtures and mantels, mountains of demolition debris still clog our nation’s landfills.

and they rehabiliate them into affordable housing. AWESOME!!!

Read the whole article.

I just read this article in Natural Home Magazine about a couple who moved to St. John and build a charming Caribbean home. You know what I liked the most? Their sewage system.

The home’s sewage treatment system, developed by NASA environmental engineer Bill Wolverton, is a small-scale biological wetland that duplicates nature’s waste-cleaning processes and encourages plants, animals and microorganisms to interact with the sun, soil and air to improve water quality. Microbes in the plants’ roots aid in the purification process; pathogens in the sewage serve as food for the microbes, which convert wastewater into nutrients for the plants.

Integrated into the landscape design, the Burgamys’ wastewater ecological treatment (WET) system provides terracing that divides the pool deck from the beach area and provides water for the immense plants and vegetation. “You would never know that it was, in fact, the sewage treatment system for the house,” White says.

Constructed wetlands can effectively remove pollutants from wastewater and stormwater. The WET system’s treated wastewater is an alternative water source that reduces the demand for fresh water.

Read the whole thing!

I just read this article in Natural Home Magazine by Robyn Griggs Lawrence about recent college grad Heather Ferrier and the house she built. It’s pretty awesome. I want to build a house.

Mission Accomplished: A Superefficient Texas Home

With little money, recent college graduate Heather Ferrier wasn’t the likeliest candidate to build the greenest house in Texas.

Heather Ferrier grew up around green building. Her father, Don Ferrier, was crafting earth-sheltered homes in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 1982. Heather began helping out around the construction company’s offices at age 9. When she graduated from college and later became general manager of Ferrier Construction, Heather wanted to build a deep green house. Not only did she crave a sunny, healthy place to live, but she was determined to show the world it could be done on a budget.

Because of mortgage stipulations and real estate minimum size requirements, Heather found she would have to build a roughly 2,000-square-foot house. That left her with a modest budget of $115 per square foot—and she wanted a house with some flair. “Most clients have much larger budgets, needless to say,” she says.

Her accomplishment is astounding. Her 2,028-square-foot passive solar home, built for $235,000, is the first home in Texas (the third in the United States) to get the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest Platinum ranking. It’s a prototype for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America program; was named the 2007 Dallas Builders’ Best Green Home; and won the Gold Energy Value Housing Award, which honors the nation’s energy-efficient elite. Nearly 4,000 people have toured the home.

“Heather wanted to dispel people’s grumblings that only the elite can afford a green home,” Don Ferrier says. Her goal of using the home as an educational tool has worked. “This house has really hit a nerve locally and nationally,” Heather says. “It’s caught the attention of a lot of people.”

Read the rest

Germany won the Solar Decathalon. Again. Because they totally beat our asses when it comes to being environmentally awesome. Way to go, Technische Universitat Darmstadt!!!

For the second time in a row, Team Germany’s demonstration home took first prize in the Solar Decathlon, a worldwide green building and design contest for college students sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Team Germany’s 800-square-foot home was a showstopping example of how cutting-edge technology, space-saving techniques and innovative multifunction design can create a comfortable, contemporary and incredibly efficient home.

Team Germany focused on producing surplus energy and covered every exterior surface with photovoltaic panels. The team’s home scored the maximum 150 points in the “net metering” category.

Source

Make your roof a lighter color.

Make your parking lots a lighter color.

Or, if you’re a student, when you’re using your badass expensive prisma colors to color in you design for your studio critic ‘cause she told you to use colors this week, try coloring your parking lots and your roofs white. Think of all the ink you’ll save.

For everybody else, think of all the CO2 you’ll save. Read more:

Anyone who’s crossed a parking lot in August knows that blacktop soaks up a lot of heat. It turns out, rethinking the color of the surfaces around us could help cool the planet.

Roofs and pavements cover 60 percent of urban areas. Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the California Energy Commission calculated that lightening their color worldwide could have the same effect on global warming as keeping 48.5 billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. That’s roughly the equivalent of taking every car in the world off the road for 18 years. This elegantly simple solution works because of increased albedo—the degree to which reflective surfaces bounce back the sun’s energy.

Closer to home, color-consciousness does more than fight climate change. Choosing roofing material that absorbs less heat can mean substantial energy savings and may qualify for utility-company rebates. Studies show a “cool roof” can cut air-conditioning bills by 20 percent or more. “It’s not only white roofs” says Michelle van Tijen of the Cool Roof Rating Council. The more than 1,400 products in the organization’s online database come in a range of colors, yet are engineered to reflect more heat than traditional shingles.

Source

I just read this in my printed, subscriber-copy of Natural Home Magazine about three green prefab homes you can get for under $120,000. Which, if you live in crazy over-priced LA as I do, is about the tenth the price of a “regular” home. If you live in the smack dab of the state of Washington like my friend Trisha does, then these prefab prices are about the going rate for houses. Just so you know.

I’m pro-pre-fab. It’s cheaper, faster, and less wasteful than “traditional” construction, and by “traditional” I mean the way they’ve been building houses since WWII. If we want to change our definition of “traditional” to mean the way people have been building their houses all of the world for thousands of years, then these are very resource-heavy and very environmentally wasteful. So it’s all relative – better than some, but not as good as most.

Anyway, if yo want to be better than some, but not as good as most, here you are:

#1: I-HOUSE

Clayton Homes, one of America’s largest prefabricated home manufacturers, has developed the i-house “to create an environmentally friendly house that promotes healthy living at a price people can afford,” says Brandon O’Connor, Clayton’s i-house specialist. The 723-square-foot basic unit costs around $75,000 and can be expanded and customized. The highly efficient i-house’s 4-kilowatt solar-electric system powers it for about a dollar a day.

• Low-E windows
• Efficient appliances
• Solar panels
• Super insulation
• Dual-flush toilets
• Tankless water heater
• Bamboo floors
• Rainwater-collection cisterns
• Zero-VOC paint
• Composite decking from recycled materials

For more information visit Clayton Homes’ website or call (866) 516-1140.

(Why do they call it the “i-house"? To sound trendy?)

#2: COTTAGE IN A DAY

Last August, Cottage in a Day delivered the first of its factory-built homes. Constructed with structural insulated panels (SIPs)—efficient foam sandwiched between two pieces of oriented strand board—the homes exceed the National Association of Home Builders’ green standards. Local suppliers provide materials, and excess materials are rebuilt into furniture, mailboxes and birdhouses. Cottage in a Day’s 1428 SB model offers 375 square feet and a 288-square-foot deck for $117,000.

• 70 percent recycled-content steel roofs
• Energy Star appliances
• Bamboo flooring
• Low-VOC finishes
• Structural insulated panels
• High-recovery electric water heater
• Dual-flush toilets
• Energy Star windows
• Water-saving fixtures
• Electric air-to-air heat exchanger

For more information visit Cottage in a Day’s website or call (231) 946-7741.

#3: BLU HOMES

Blu Homes save 30 to 50 percent in energy and release half the carbon emissions of a typical home. The 600-square-foot, one-bedroom/one-bath Origin prefab costs around $90,000. The company uses a combination of modular and flat-pack technology to reduce shipping costs. “Our goal as a company has been to provide sustainable homes for ordinary Americans,” says Maura McCarthy, cofounder and vice president of business development.

• Efficient soy-polyurethane foam insulation
• Clerestory windows for passive solar and natural lighting
• Low-water toilets and low-flow fixtures
• 93 percent efficient forced hot air and cooling system
• Bamboo, cork or sustainable wood flooring
• Recycled rubber or metal roof tiles
• Energy Star appliances
• Cradle-to-Cradle-certified interior products
• Heat recovery coil in shower
• Paperstone or other eco-friendly countertops
• Energy Star windows
• Low/no-VOC laminate or wood cabinetry
• Home energy-management system
• CFL or LED lighting

For more information visit Blu Homes’ website or call (617) 517-6163.

I just learned about William Coperthwaite and his book, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity

Winner of The Nautilus Award 2004 in Ecology/Environment, Honoring Distinguished Literary Contribution to Conscious Living and Positive Social Change.

If you believe in “learning by doing,” here is my personal recommendation for an important book to add to your Library. – Kiko Denzer

William Coperthwaite lives in one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever stepped into – it also happens to be the only round house I’ve ever been in that really works. He has filled it with many wonderful things he has made, by hand, or books about things that others have made. Perhaps most surprisingly beautiful was the hand made scotch tape dispenser that sat on his writing desk. When I admired it, he said: “why must I have some large ugly plastic thing on my desk?” His book asks and answers similar questions about everything in our lives:

“Can you have ‘culture’ without violence?”

“Is beauty useful?”

“Are justice, democracy, and peace possible if most all of our technologies require violence?”

For the past 47 years, Coperthwaite has walked the same mile and a half trail from the road to his home – or has canoed the waterways to town. When he has to carry heavy stuff down the trail, he uses a hand-made wheelbarrow with a Chinese-inspired shoulder strap that makes the load almost effortless. Why don’t all wheelbarrows come with such straps!? He cooks and heats with wood, which he cuts by hand (he uses just a cord and a half a year). His most basic, useful, and important tools for daily living – his wooden house, bowls, and spoons – he made himself, by hand. Last winter he made brooms, several examples of which stand at the ready in various corners.

When someone gave me his book, I was at first suspicious. It was big, with large-format, glossy color photos of beautiful landscapes, tools, and buildings. But then I started to read, and found the thoughts, experiences, stories, and designs of a (now) 77 year old man who has spent the better part of his life working by hand and with others. He knows why he does it, and it was nourishing to find someone who could carefully and lovingly explain many things which I have felt, and known, but not often heard (much less said myself):

“The quality of a thing comes from the knowledge and beauty it carries more than from its expense.”

“The home is the center of education and emotional security, two of the essential elements of a healthy society. More and more, the functions of the home have been taken over by the school, but a school is no substitute for family, no matter how fine the instructors or expensive the equipment…. There is no foundation more crucial than the sensitive care of the young in building a sane society. What mental insolvency has overtaken us that we can allow the core of our culture to be so denigrated and weakened? What a failure of design!

He also gave me practical directions for the simplest shaving horse I’ve ever come across; a crook knife that I could make with nothing more than a hammer, a vise, a file, and a drill; and a “democratic axe” as well as numerous toys and games that have made handy games and/or lessons for both kids and adults.

Here is a wise voice to remind you that life is personal, intimate, beautiful and passionate; that the beauty of nature is, despite science, still miraculous; that the singing of the birds is more important than asking why they sing. So consider all the “stuff” you take for granted as “essential” to life: car, house, plumbing, wiring; glass, steel, and concrete; paper, ink, and printing. What would it be like to undertake the adventure of living in such a miraculously beautiful world with tools that are equally beautiful and miraculous?

William Coperthwaite is a Maine native who has spent much of his life researching folk-art and subsistence skills around the world. In addition to designing, adapting, and building hundreds of yurts, he has also helped to illuminate and inspire uncounted numbers of trained and untrained builders. He has a doctorate from the Harvard School of Education, and has taught in a variety of innovative settings. His Yurt Foundation promotes sensible and economical self-reliance through workshops, lectures, and publications. They publish a beautiful calendar that is available for $12 from The Yurt Foundation, Dickinson’s Reach, Machiasport, ME, 04655.

Peter Forbes is a long-time leader in the American land conservation movement, both through his work with the Trust for Public Land and his talks, writings, and photography.

I just told you about the awesome people over at the Cob Cottage Company, their book The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage: The Real Goods Solar Living Book, and their wookshops.

Here’s another book of theirs that I’m really excited about: Rocket Mass Heaters: Superefficient Woodstoves YOU Can Build

This book is the second edition to Rocket Stoves to Heat Cob Buildings published by Cob Cottage Company. Drawings, descriptions and photos are improved and added to. This time, they provide more clear instruction on the brick assembly, the part of building rocket stove that is all in the design, and mechanically somewhat baffling until you actually do it a few times. The case studies and color photos will get you thinking about the possibilities, and there are extended Troubleshooting and Question-and-Answer sections. The Glossary is still practically non-existent, testament to how simple this is.

From the Introduction, by Ianto Evans:

“Here is a superefficient wood fired heater you can build for yourself in a weekend for less than a hundred dollars. This book explains in detail exactly how to build one, then how to use it in a range of applications.

We discuss materials: where to find them, what to pay and how to make use of found and recycled parts. The section on fire and fuels is thorough but simple; we tried to keep away from numbers wherever possible.

There are success stories, case studies, references and where to find further information, all heavily illustrated. Home heating can be expensive both in capital equipment and in running costs. If we heat by gas, oil or electricity we are supporting a big corporation and impoverishing ourselves.

The new woodstoves are no longer craftsman-made locally. When we buy them, we are paying a distant corporation which sometimes ships them in from Europe. Wood for heating usually supports the local economy and it is completely renewable energy.

By building an extra efficient heating system you will be one more big step off the treadmill and your move to self-sufficiency and true wealth. Good luck with your stove!”

Buy it from Amazon

THe only thing I’ve read so far of The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage: The Real Goods Solar Living Book is the title and I’m already in love.

A Cob Cottage might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that the authors refer to it as “an ecstatic house.” They build a house the way others create a natural garden, using the oldest, most available materials earth, clay, sand, straw, and water and blending them to redefine the future (and past) of building. Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning “lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders sculpt their structures by hand.

Cob houses (or cottages, since they are usually efficiently small by American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they ARE their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches. They are delightful. They are ecstatic.

The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake a cob building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.

You won’t want to miss The Hand-Sculpted House:

* The definitive guide to Cob and Natural Building.
* Authors Ianto Evans, Michael Smith and Linda Smiley are top authorities in the field.
* 346 pages, 8 x 10, 8-page color section and almost 100 black and white photos, plus 230 drawings by Deanne Bednar. Source lists, bibliography, the only full glossary of Natural Building, seven appendices including Codes and Permits, Earthquakes, Research Needed and Training Opportunities.
* 10 chapters of step-by-step how to do it, 9 chapters of background, including design, siting, budgeting and site preparation.
* Explains how to make a durable, snug, fireproof, bugproof house with cob, a handmade composite of earth, sand, straw and water.

Join the hundreds of people who are already building their own earthen greenhouse, courtyard walls, sauna, oven, cottage or house with cob, the easiest and oldest hand-building system.

Oh my God! Oh my God! They even have WORKSHOPS!!!

Here is just one of MANY workshops on their site:

The $1,000 House! A Complete Cob 17 day Intensive
Start Date: Aug 8 2010
End Date: Aug 28 2010
Location: Coquille, OR
Cost: $1,680
Accommodations: Includes all meals, camping is available free of charge
Registration, Discounts and Related Information: http://www.cobcottage.com/registration
Instructors: Kirk Mobert and TBA
Description:

WANT TO BUILD A $1,000 HOUSE? We have done just that and can show you how. Back by popular demand, this is the most comprehensive cob course available in North America. In the past 15 years, we’ve taught almost 200 major cob courses. In this 17 day intensive, we’ll cover in depth all aspects of cob and the many techniques of building with cob including arches, details, shelving, furniture and earthen floors. In this expanded version of our most popular program ever, we’ll take the ground out from under your feet and turn it into a versatile medium to sculpt a whole house. In the first 4 days, you will learn Siting, Design and Foundations - the core essentials to any successful building. You will have a 2 day rest which you will need to ready yourself for a 9 day intensive in all aspects of building the cob structure. Another 2 day rest period, where the final 4 days you will learn about living roofs and the finishing techniques of plasters and earth floors. This is a workshop for those that want to be totally emersed in the project, with the physical stammina to endure 17 days of intense hands on education. You will leave confident enough to build a $1,000 house of your own! Space is limited to 20 people to allow personalized hands on instruction.

I just added Climate Master to the Offical Resource List of Awesomeness.

They do residential and geothermal systems.

Here’s a calculator so that you can see how much money you’ll save when you design/build/convert to geothermal.

I just learned about Kiko Denzer. He builds with earth. And his motto is “that what we learn to do, we learn by doing.” For those of you who know about my fascination with Nader Khalili, you can see why I had to learn more about Kiko.

Now, I’ll delight you with some images of Kiko’s work. Then, I’ll tell you more about his book and how to get it.

Kiko wrote the book Build Your Own Earth Oven: A Low-Cost Wood-Fired Mud Oven; Simple Sourdough Bread; Perfect Loaves.

Denzer, an artist and builder, creates beautiful wood-fired ovens using the most widely available building material: dirt. Some earth ovens are plain while others are formed into the shape of animals or human faces. Denzer offers an explanation of basic concepts such as material selection, oven location, and design and then guides readers through the construction of their own oven. Earth ovens could be produced most anywhere using Denzer’s instructions; he even shows how to build a weatherproof roof. A sourdough bread recipe is included. Appealing to a diverse audience of bakers, outdoor cooks, traditional crafts persons, and perhaps even homeschoolers looking for a project, this title should be part of most public library collections. - Review from Library Journal

This brand new, completely re-written edition features:

• revised text: updated, expanded, and completely re-organized so as to simplify the making of
• a super-insulated design that holds heat longer and burns less fuel; as well as
• a simplified, 4-step recipe for making really good (wholegrain) sourdough bread - written by Hannah Field, a former professional baker who has worked in wood fired and organic bakeries on both sides of the Atlantic (also the author’s wife).
• Also: a foreword by Alan Scott, grandfather of wood-fired ovens and artisan bread, co-author (with Dan Wing) of The Bread Builders, and an inspiration to many aspiring artisans;
• an 8-page color gallery of beautiful ovens sculpted both by the author, as well as readers who wanted to share their work;
• innovations and variations, like mobile ovens, super-efficient “rocket” ovens, hay-box cookers, and more.

You can find it for sale in the bookstore under Shelter/Building or at Amazon.

Build Your Own Earth Oven is a fully-illustrated handbook for making a simple, wood-fired, masonry-style oven. It provides clear, step-by-step instructions for building and firing the oven, as well as complete directions for making sourdough bread in the best (and simplest) artisan tradition.

Earth ovens are as simple as a southwestern horno or European bee-hive oven and every bit as effective as a fancy brick hearth or modern, steam-injected commercial oven. The dense, three-to-twelve inch thick earthen walls store the heat of the fire; after the hot coals are removed, the hot walls radiate a steady, intense heat for hours. The resulting steamy environment is essential for the crisp, flavorful crusts of true hearth loaves, and you can easily build it for less than the price of a couple of fancy dough-rising baskets!

If you like to cook outdoors, an earth oven can also transform fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs into delicious pies, pizzas, and other creations (one of my favorites is fresh vegetables, herbs, and potatoes drizzled with olive oil). Pizza cooks to perfection in three minutes, and you can even use the residual heat to dry your surplus garden produce, and incubate your home-made yogurt!

Building with earth is safe, easy, inexpensive, and extraordinarily effective. Good building soil is usually right under your feet! Many will find it in their back yards. Use it plain, or mixed with sand and straw. Build the simplest oven in a day! Adding a roof and foundation makes it permanent. The simple, round shape makes a beautiful garden sculpture, or can be sculpted into a fire-breathing dragon!

It is a project that appeals to bakers, builders, and beginners of all kinds: The serious or aspiring baker who wants the best lo-cost oven for their bread; Gardeners and outdoor cooks who want a centerpiece for a beautiful outdoor kitchen; People interested in creative uses of low-cost materials and simple technologies; and Teachers who want a multi-faceted, experiential learning experience for their students (the book has been successful with everyone from third-graders to adults).

Illustrated by the author with over a hundred drawings and photos, it includes color pictures of sculpted ovens and their builders, as well as further references on food, baking, and building.

A note from Kiko about the book:

The success of this book has been a (welcome!) surprise. Hand Print Press was launched with a fraternal, good-faith cash loan and 2,500 copies of a book about mud ovens. I thought I might be able to make some interesting sculpture with the books, if nothing else. 20,000 copies and about ten years later, Artisan bread is a multi-billion dollar industry, and sales of “artisanal” bread are growing four times faster than the business as a whole, and almost 20 times faster than white bread.*
*Source: www.nytimes.com, market research from Mintel Consumer Intelligence

I suppose in itself that isn’t so surprising. Specialty foods are a pretty safe bet, if you’re a betting kind of person and looking for faddish things to bet on. What has surprised me is the reception the book has gotten from all kinds of folks. Maybe it’s just a fluke of marketing and good fortune. Maybe it’s just the crest of the fad. Maybe (just maybe), it’s a confirmation of the basic precept of this little press: that what we learn to do, we learn by doing. And what can shopping teach us except debt and dissatisfaction? Man lives not by shopping alone. Nor does woman. Nor do we learn anything essential by it.

Home-made bread, on the other hand, is a basic (and tasty) antidote to buying. OK, that makes sense. And mud is simple and cheap and makes a good oven. OK. But it still doesn’t explain the kind of pride and pleasure evident in the notes and letters I’ve gotten from happy oven builders.

When I wrote it, I was mostly concerned about offering a way to make a good, cheap oven; the “art” was just sprinkled in because I’m a sculptor. But now I wonder? Maybe people want “artisan” bread because a good loaf, like good art, is unique and individual; an event that becomes a part of you.

Perhaps the ovens are real art that anyone can make; perhaps the bread is real food that anyone can make; perhaps, together, they are an antidote to the slavery of consumption, the endless earning of dollars to buy stuff we don’t need to satisfy desires we can’t name, understand, or control.

Perhaps artisan bread means more than just “complexity of flavors,” but also a complexity of relationships: In a traditional artisan economy, different artisans each made something essential to all the others. Their trade was true trade, not just an exchange of dollars, but an intimate interweaving of life and fortune. For example:

“Bernard Clavel, a French writer whose father was a baker, wrote that the bakeshop was on the way to local saltworks, and that his mother would open up at five in the morning so that the salters could buy bread on their way to work. His father sold bread to the wine-growers, some of whom gave a cask a wine in exchange, and to the wood-cutter (huge eight-pound loaves), who in return would deliver the wood needed to fire the bread-oven. When the baker ran out of salt, he would drive up to the saltworks to pick up a sack, paid for - in bread.” [see Clavel’s introduction to The Book of Bread, by Jerome Assire, Flammarion, 1996, Cited in Cooking with Fire in Public Spaces, Friends of Dufferin Grove Park.]

Obviously, we no longer live in such a society, but as much as people hunger for good bread, they also hunger for the kind and quality of relationship that produces good bread. I’m not saying a mud oven is any kind of answer, but it is extraordinary how the simple act of making an oven can give people a confidence in their own ability to participate in and enrich their own lives.

Since that first printing, Earth Ovens have been seen in Country Garden Magazine, Mother Earth News, The Chicago Tribune, the UK’s Petit Propos Culinaire and Permaculture Magazine, among others. I’ve heard from mainstream, weekend gardeners to “simple living,” back-to-the-land, “fringe"dwellers, Peace-Corps volunteers, to do-it-yourselfers, third-graders, graduating seniors, and other artists of all ages!

I am grateful, and curious to see what happens next.

– Kiko Denzer

Read Kiko’s blog and buy his book.

I just read this in designboom. It’s pretty awesome.

(It’s not just you; they really don’t capitalize the first letter of any sentence.)

designboom has dedicated a large amount of time to learn more about clay - one of the earliest natural building materials in history of men. our intent is to promote earth also as a building material of the future. it represents an excellent alternative to cement whose manufacture releases considerable quantities of CO2. individual housing units and small apartment buildings can easily be built from earth in every part of the world.

however, concrete remains an essential material for high-rise construction. the research effort should be therefore two-pronged: tailoring earth to the needs of modern construction and making concrete ‘greener’.

in this first article of a series, which we will publish in the upcoming weeks, we’ll examine a few ancient building techniques.

the musgum, an ethnic group in far north province in cameroon, created their homes from compressed sun-dried mud. the tall conical dwellings, in the shape of a shell (artillery), featured geometric raised patterns.

what strikes at first sight is their almost organic simplicity, a second reading reveals the functions behind the forms. the walls of the houses are thicker at the base than at the summit, which increases the stability of the building.

the domed huts of the musgum people are built in shaped mud, a variant of cob. cob building is the most widely used technique in the world, since no tools are needed - hands, earth and water are enough.

the name of these houses (’cases obos’) comes from their similarity with the profile of shells. it is very close to the catenary arch, the ideal mathematical form to bear a maximum weight with minimal material. this profile also reduces the pressure effect of the impact of water drops on the walls. furthermore, the extraordinary height (up to 9 meters) of these houses provides a comfort climate during hot days. the top of the house is pierced with a circular opening, allowing the air to circulate, resulting in the sensation of freshness.

today, these buildings have become somewhat obsolete, with only a few groups still practicing this ‘cases obos’ type of construction.

curves and grooves are the language of natural forms.

the musgum house follows the profile of shells - the arc of a chain.

bows and vaults obtained in this way can be very slim and allow the use of a minimum of material for maximum rigidity. the arc adopting the inverted profile (figure below) will only work in compression and does not produces parasitic twisting or bending moments.

the decorative surface allows for further refinement and individualization. the veins are also contributing to the drainage of rain. the musgum houses require regular maintenance of the coating and the veins allow people to climb atop the building.

the construction technique of musgum clay houses is currently also mentioned in the exhibition ‘ma terre premiere pour construire demain’. it explores how and why we should build with earth. on show at the cité des science et de l’industrie, paris until june 10th, 2010.

I was just reading this article by Perry Marshall about how the American Education system turns people into obedient drones to service a planned economy. That’s the short version. If you want the long version, you should read everything by John Taylor Gatto. You should read the works of John Holt, too, while you’re at it.

Something about what Perry Marshall wrote made me think of the licensing process for becoming, technically, legally, an “architect.”

Lee Milteer, who is a professional speaker and coach, was asked to speak at a conference of certified professional trainers. When she told them she charges $250 per hour for her personal coaching services, they were outraged. “You have no right to charge $250 per hour! Certified Professional Trainers are only supposed to charge $85 per hour. And you’re not even certified!”

Lee replied “Who says I have to be certified? And who says what I should be able to charge? And who certified the people who are handing out the certifications?”
That really made them mad.

Most people don’t realize that they’re living in an artificially constructed world in which the only reason others have power over them is that they allow them to have the power. Most of the people who certify you are actually your competitors. It’s their job to impede your progress. Stop giving them permission.

You do not wait for someone else to tell you it’s OK to be an expert, or innovate, or claim a title, or dispense advise. You just do it – and you let the laws of supply and demand take care of the rest.

If you have this idea in your head that you need to wait for someone’s permission, you need to re-examine your assumptions, and the education that formed those assumptions.

You can find this in a 15-page PDF, downloadable here.

If you’re not ar architect, or an architecture student, here is what you currently must do in order to legally call yourself an architect:

Architects must be licensed before they can practice architecture as or call themselves an architect.

There are four main steps to becoming an architect.

Education
In most states, to become licensed, candidates must earn a professional degree in architecture from one of the more than 100 schools of architecture that have degree programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). However, each state architectural registration board sets its own standards, so graduation from a non-accredited program may meet the educational requirement for licensing in a few states.

Three types of professional degrees in architecture are available:

Bachelor of Architecture: Accredited degree programs awarding the B. Arch. degree must require a minimum of 150 semester credit hours, or the quarter-hour equivalent, in academic coursework in professional studies and electives.

Master of Architecture: Accredited degree programs awarding the M. Arch. degree must require a minimum of 168 semester credit hours, or the quarter-hour 10 equivalent, of which 30 semester credit hours, or the quarter-hour equivalent, must be at the graduate level, in academic coursework in professional studies and electives.

Doctor of Architecture: Accredited degree programs awarding the D. Arch. degree must require either an undergraduate baccalaureate degree or a minimum of 120 undergraduate semester credit hours, or the undergraduate-level quarterhour equivalent, and a minimum of 90 graduate-level semester credit hours, or the graduate-level quarter-hour equivalent, in academic coursework in professional studies and electives.

Internship
Most state architectural registration boards require architecture graduates to complete an internship in order to become licensed. The Intern Development Program (IDP) is a comprehensive training program created to ensure that interns in the architecture profession gain the knowledge and skills required for the independent practice of architecture.

Most new graduates complete their training period by working as interns at architectural firms. Interns in architectural firms may assist in the design of one part of a project, help prepare architectural documents or drawings, build models, or prepare construction drawings on CADD. Interns also may research building codes and materials or write specifications for building materials, installation criteria, the quality of finishes, and other related details.

Examination
All 54 U.S. jurisdictions require the completion of the Architect Registration Examination (ARE). The examination is broken into seven divisions consisting of multiple choice and graphical questions. The eligibility period for completion of all divisions of the exam varies by state.

Licensure
All jurisdictions require individuals to be licensed (registered) before they may call themselves architects and contract to provide architectural services. During the time between graduation and becoming licensed, architecture school graduates generally work in the field under the supervision of a licensed architect who takes legal responsibility for all work. Licensing requirements include a professional degree in architecture, a period of practical training or internship, and passing the ARE. You must contact your registration board to find out their requirements and complete the licensure process.

Before 1897, no legal definition of “architect,” nor any legal requirements concerning the use of the title or the provision of architectural services, existed. In that year, however, Illinois became the first state to adopt an architectural licensing law. It would take more than 50 years for all of the states to follow suit and adopt licensing laws. Today the AIA works in conjunction with the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) to develop and recommend standards regulating the practice of architecture.

Read more about the history of the AIA

I just read an excerpt of Sarah Susanka’s “Not So Big Remodeling.”

Natural Home Magazine (dot com) got permission to reprint it on their website. I did not. Not that I tried. So I’ll give you a paragraph and send you over there to read the rest.

I’ve spent the last 10 years traveling the country, describing to eager audiences the attributes and benefits of a Not So Big House—one that’s about a third smaller than you thought you needed but that’s filled with the personalized details that give it that feeling of “home.” Not So Big emphasizes quality over quantity and is designed to fit the way we really live. Everywhere I go, people sit in rapt attention as they come to the startlingly simple realization that a house doesn’t have to be bigger to be better.

The rest…

You’ve probably heard of Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates.

Here’s more info from Carol Venolia on making your edible estate extra awesome.

Beautiful Enough to Eat: Edible Landscaping

If the sun shines on your outdoor space—whether a tiny balcony or a large yard—you can have an edible landscape.

If I told you that one activity could make you healthier, improve the quality of your food, conserve fossil fuels, strengthen your community, increase biodiversity, help children understand that food does grow on trees, and restore your sense of connection with the natural world, would you be interested? I have two words: edible landscaping.

Edible landscaping means using attractive, food-producing plants in a well-designed garden, rather than using solely ornamental plants or planting food crops in utilitarian layouts. An edible landscape can be created in any style, and it can incorporate a mix of edible and ornamental plants.

The standard American “lawn, shrubs and shade tree” yard may provide a certain visual satisfaction, but it does virtually nothing to feed people or to provide a habitat for other critters. By contrast, an edible landscape offers fresh, affordable food, a variety of blooming plants, ever-changing seasonal surroundings, plus provides a home and sustenance for bees, butterflies and birds.

An ancient idea

Ancient Persian gardens celebrated plants’ edible and ornamental virtues. Medieval monasteries supported a rich array of vegetables, flowers, fruits and medicinal herbs and, until the 19th century, suburban English yards combined edible and decorative elements.

But as agriculture developed, food production became a working-class practice. In Edible Estates, Fritz Haeg writes that purely ornamental landscapes came to symbolize wealth and nobility, while food plants were relegated to unseen areas. “To grow food plants around your house 150 years ago implied that you didn’t have the means to pay someone to do it for you,” says Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist for the National Gardening Association.

In the early 1970s, the nascent environmental movement—combined with a fuel crisis and a surge of interest in self-sufficiency—gave rise to a new interest in growing food at home. With the help of Rodale Press, an organic gardening movement began to gain traction. In the 1980s, two seminal books on edible landscaping—Rosalind Creasy’s The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping and Robert Kourik’s Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally—launched a new trend. Today, kitchen gardens are seeing a renaissance. Within that, edible landscaping is tapping deep roots. “The whole atmosphere around edible landscaping is different now,” Creasy says. “There’s tremendous momentum.”

Why we love edibles

Whether to save money or provide better-quality food for their families, Americans are more interested than ever in growing their own food, Creasy says. “People want to reduce their carbon footprint, get unhooked from industrial farming and eat food that didn’t travel 1,500 miles to the table. And they value vegetables now, which wasn’t always the case.”

At the same time, we have more varieties of attractive edible plants available than ever before. “Twenty years ago, you couldn’t obtain heirloom plants unless you were a member of the Seed Savers Exchange,” Creasy says. “Now we have heirloom apples, tomatoes, melons—varieties that the public is realizing they’ve been denied for decades.” Inspired by this surge of interest, Creasy is thoroughly revising Edible Landscaping for re-release this spring.

Newer and unusual fruits and vegetables allow you to choose plants specifically suited to your site and needs, Nardozzi says. “Some of the variety comes from breeding, some from heirloom seeds, and some by the introduction of species from other continents,” he says. He’s intrigued by newly available dwarf fruit trees that let you “fit a lot of stuff in a small yard.”

In any gardening endeavor, it’s good to start small. Half-barrels make perfect starter containers for edible landscaping, Creasy says. Nardozzi recommends making small changes to standard lawns over time. You can replace sections of the lawn with an edible groundcover such as strawberries; plant a fruit or nut tree where you might have planted a standard shade tree; grow a climbing grape instead of an unproductive vine; or place a berry, currant or hazelnut bush where an inedible shrub once stood.

Design rules

Design is what separates edible landscaping from normal vegetable gardening (a fine thing in itself). “If I just put vegetables in rows,” Creasy says, “my eye goes down the row and out—like driving down the highway. But if I take that same plot, open up a space in the middle for a special plant, curve all the paths around the center like a rainbow, maybe put a bench at the back with a trellis over it for runner beans and some morning glories, and add a few flowers, that is now much more than a vegetable garden—it’s an ornamental edible landscape. It’s going to please your eye and draw you out into the yard, not just to harvest but to experience the garden.”

Design tips

An edible landscape should incorporate traditional landscape design values:

• Create primary and secondary focal points.

• Use plantings and hardscaping (such as paths and patios) to define spaces for various uses and experiences.

• Work consciously with color, texture and seasons of blooming and fruiting when choosing your garden’s palette.

• Pay attention to how you lead the eye from one part of the garden to another.

• Except for featured specimen plants, create groupings of plants to avoid a busy, random appearance.

• Explore the aesthetic potential of plants: Grow vines on arbors; create edible landscape walls with vines and shrubs; espalier fruit trees; use containers as accents; grow decorative borders of edibles.

• Make plants do double duty by shading your house in summer and admitting sunshine in winter, reducing your home’s energy use.

Fit for a queen: sources of inspiration

In 2009, the Queen of England had an organic edible landscape installed at Buckingham Palace. Laid out in concentric circles with a bean tipi in the center, the garden includes heirloom species of beans, lettuce, tomatoes and other edibles.

Creasy has created a large edible landscape garden at Powell Gardens in Kansas City, Missouri. Hers is part of the new 12-acre Heartland Harvest Garden, the nation’s largest edible landscape. Creasy also recommends visiting “one of the best established edible landscapes” in this country at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

For more inspiration, explore Village Homes, a development in Davis, California, where edibles play an integral role in landscape design. Check out Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates program, in which he transforms lawns all over the country into productive environments.

Small but fruitful

The Ohio State University Extension offers the following tips for getting the most produce from a small space.

■ Put herb pots on the patio.

■ Include cherry tomatoes in a window box or hanging basket.

■ Build a grape arbor.

■ Grow nasturtiums, violas, borage or calendula to use in salads.

■ Plant a fruit tree in the corner of your yard.

■ Grow Red Jewel cabbage.

■ Plant colorful peppers such as Lipstick or Habanero alongside flowers.

■ Tuck lettuce, radishes or other short-lived greens into a flower bed.

■ Replace a barberry hedge with gooseberries.

■ Plant basil with coleus in a planter.

■ Try attractive yellow or “rainbow” chard.

■ Grow chives around the mailbox.

■ Train raspberries up your fence.

Resources

Further Reading:
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn by Fritz Haeg et al.

Edible Landscaping: Now You Can Have Your Gorgeous Garden and Eat it Too by Rosalind Creasy

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway

Landscaping with Fruit: Strawberry ground covers, blueberry hedges, grape arbors, and 39 other luscious fruits to make your yard an edible paradise by Lee Reich

Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables by Fred Hagy

I’ve talked about growing your own food here before, and while I know that it isn’t strictly related to architecture, I also believe that a lot of my preferences about architecture – namely, that it be vernacular, economical, environmentally-awesome, and DIY – relate very much to my ideas about food.

So here’s an article by Roger Doiron that I just read about a couple who grows all their own food. They decided to weight all of their produce so that they could precisely figure out how much they were saving every year by growing their own food.

(Hint: It’s a LOT)

Here’s the article:

When the Going Gets Tough, Grow Your Own Food

Michelle Obama’s White House kitchen garden got everyone talking about the health and culinary benefits of growing your own food. This Maine family proves its economic value.

Last year, my wife, Jacqueline, proposed that in addition to crunching on our own homegrown produce, we also crunch the numbers to see how much money our garden saves us. This sounded about as appealing as a heaping plate of overcooked broccoli. In addition to raising three busy boys, managing two careers, volunteering and growing most of our own produce, she wanted us to weigh and record every item from our garden and spend leisurely winter evenings doing garden math? Jacqueline, a former economics major and a native French speaker, answered with a simple “oui.” The project began.

We filled our log book with dates and figures, starting with our first salad greens in late April and ending in mid-February with the final cutting of Belgian endive, forced from roots in our basement. We grew 35 crops: 834 pounds and nearly 10 months’ worth of organic food. We calculated what it would have cost us to buy the same items using three sets of prices: conventional grocery store ($2,196.50), farmer’s market ($2,431.15) and Whole Foods ($2,548.93).

Our costs? We spent $130 for seeds and supplies, $12 for a soil test, $40 for water and $100 for locally made organic compost—a return on investment of 762 percent.

What you need to know

1. Size your garden according to your goals and the amount of time you plan to invest in it.

Certain crops are more profitable and space-efficient than others. A small garden planted primarily with salad greens and trellised tomatoes, for example, will produce more economic value per square foot than one planted with potatoes and squash. Start small with the crops you enjoy the most and scale up as you succeed.

2. Location matters.

Kitchen gardens do best in areas that drain well and receive full sun (at least six hours). Be sure the location is convenient for you. The easier it is for you to get into your garden, the more produce you’re likely to get out of it.

3. In cool climates, extend the growing season with cold frames, hoophouses and mini greenhouses.

Our small cold frame made from scrap materials lets us begin harvesting greens a full month before most gardeners in my area have set foot in their gardens.

4. Don’t try to plant all at once; put in crops over a number of weeks.

If you plant an entire packet of beans in a few long rows in early June, you’ll have a bumper crop in late July, but what about August and September? Planting shorter rows early and often ensures a steady supply. It’s less important to spread out the planting of root vegetables, which are likely to go into long-term storage.

Source

I just read a review from National Building Museum about an exhibit on early renderings of New England homes.

It was an interesting article until I got to this section…and then I kinda wanted to scream. Or at least throw up a little:

Not until well into the nineteenth century did the majority of American architects, especially in New England, begin frequently to intrude upon the domain of the artist, to project three-dimensional views, or anticipatory presentation perspectives, that became a standard part of their graphic repertory. Furthering their new stature as artists, architects used perspective views as visual aids to their sales pitch. As Benjamin Linfoot put it in 1884, the “architect . . . must keep his client’s enthusiasm alive and active by sending or submitting bright, jaunty little perspectives of his contemplated work.”

Some architects are gifted enough to do their own presentations, which are of course useless as instructions to the builder but useful to persuade the client to build, or—published in the new professional journals—to show off their skills to their peers, but early on there appeared men called “perspectivists” or “renderers,” who specialized in such eye-catching drawings. These renderers existed either in-house, on the staff of one architect, or were itinerant, traveling from office to office, even city to city, to rent their pencils or brushes to any who wanted them. By late in the nineteenth century such views of intended or realized buildings came to exist independently of the construction process. This gave priority to their artistic rather than their utilitarian value. They were exhibited at galleries, museums, and clubs, and published in journals and books, with the drafter’s intention of reaching beyond a specific client to a wider audience.

Oh, Benjamin Linfoot in 1884, if only you knew how this story played out. If only you knew how much time would be spent on making pretty pictures. That’s time taken away from actually designing. And sleep. Boo.

Read the whole thing.

I just read this interview over at National Building Museum about the women architects who became “footnotes and endnotes” in the history of Taliesin West.

The Making of A Girl is a Fellow Here
Interview with Beverly Willis

What role did women play in the studios of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright? According to archival research done by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF), about 100 women architects and designers worked with Wright as fellows and architects. The short documentary “A Girl is Fellow Here”: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright focuses on six of these. Scholars claim that the film, produced by BWAF, “will forever change the way we see Wright.” The following is an interview with the film’s writer-director, Beverly Willis.

National Building Museum (NBM): Beverly, let’s first talk about the genesis of the film. How did the idea originate?
Beverly Willis: The foundation’s goal is to expand historical knowledge and cultural recognition of women’s contributions to architecture. The foundation funds both public programs and scholarly research that focus on the women practitioners who have helped shape the American built environment. Producing films is, however, not typical of the foundation’s activities. But in this case, BWAF was presented at once with a great opportunity to sponsor a museum program and quite a challenge: The challenge was the dearth of information about women architects associated with Frank Lloyd Wright.

NBM Question: How does the BWAF put together a museum program?
Willis: The foundation’s typical approach to public museum programs is to find scholars, and ask them to make a presentation including images that can create a panel discussion. In this case, it was not possible. Despite the ton of material by and about Wright, we could not find Wright scholars to populate a panel to discuss the women architects in Wrights’ studio.

NBM: Were you already familiar with Wright—his work, scholarship?
Willis: Not really — but tucked in the back of my mind was this letter of reference written by Wright for Isabel Roberts, [which is preserved] in the national AIA archives in Washington, D.C.. I did know that historians called Isabel Roberts “Wright’s bookkeeper.” To me, it was so strange—knowing the existence of that letter and how it contradicted what was written in all the Wright history descriptions.

NBM: So you wondered why the history books referred to this woman as a bookkeeper, yet Wright wrote a letter recommending her as an architect? What did you do next?
Willis: I started reading books by the most prominent FLW scholars and found very few references to women architects or apprentices. I did find occasional names of women whose work was relegated to footnotes and endnotes.

NBM: What did you find next?
Willis: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation sent me the Taliesin Fellowship list from its inception in 1932 to Wright’s death in 1959. I counted up the names of women then added up the fellows and staffers who worked with Wright prior to the 1932 fellowship. I was stunned—it totaled 100 women.

NBM: And how did you decide as an architect—not as a historian—based on the research, to structure the film?
Willis: I collected sentences from the endnotes and footnotes located in books written by prominent historians and found that this material could create a short narrative. I then located personal information about the women, some from obituaries, and merged personal information with images of their architecture found mostly in the women’s own archives. I wanted to know what these women did after their training with Wright, and if their architecture in their own firms had been influenced by him, and if so, how?

NBM: From these pieces of research, how did the narrative structure fall into place?
Willis: I decided on two phases of Wright’s career: 1895-1910 and 1932-1959. Phase one started when Wright first opened his own office in 1895. Marion Mahony joined him shortly afterwards. The office grew to about seven staffers—two of which were women—Mahony and Isabel Roberts. While the number of men varied from time to time, the two women stayed on until the office closed in 1910. Mahony and Roberts actually closed the office for Wright by finishing up his work. At the same time, Mahony was also designing her own commissions.

The second phase began in 1932 with the opening fellowship, which was initially populated with 20-25% women members. I then selected four women architects in addition to Mahony and Roberts whose designs I admired and where archival material about their buildings was available.

NBM: Where are the archives located? What was the response?
Willis: The images and oral histories primarily came from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation archive at Taliesin West, the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech, the archive of the American Institute of Architects, and from individual collections, articles, corporate documents, and university libraries across the U.S.—all were very responsive and helpful.

NBM: Do you think you’ve covered everything? Or is there more research to be done?
Willis: This represents just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, there is a lot more research to be done. For example, the other 94 women—but there are thousands of women architects across the country whose history is lost. We have more than 1500 women in BWAF’s on-line database called the Dynamic National Archive, which is accessed through our web site: http://www.bwaf.org/dna/

NBM: Let’s talk for a moment about your own distinguished career in architecture—you are an architect, and now an accidental historian. Is this a typical evolution?
Willis: I passionately believe that unless we recover the lost histories of the 20th century, including my own, designers and women architects will continue to be footnotes and endnotes to history. In my 59 years of practice, I have watched this happen. No matter the recognition and accolades received while alive, women architects’ histories are like chalk writing on the black board followed by an eraser.

NBM: It sounds like you’ve discovered some significant disconnects between secondary writings and primary sources?
Willis: Yes, these disconnects are actually what inspires the work of the foundation. The task of the BWAF is to see that women be put front and center, not relegated to the footnotes, within the narrative of architectural history.

Whenever I come across an article about the LEED rating system, I roll my eyes.

Same with SAT scores, GPA’s, and class rank lists.

When the pursuit of points trumps pursuit of knowledge, you can bet that someone’s priorities are out of order.

I’m a firm believer in learning and applying the principles behind “green” or “sustainable” design, but I’m pretty suspicious of a fill-in-the-blanks approach to sustainability, especially when the list of “acceptable” point items magically changes every few years. The principles behind true green design are as old as the hills, and don’t change according to committee consensus.

And I certainly don’t need a certificate to show off to visitors.

Here’s the article:

I first heard about LEED certification years ago from my husband, John, who works for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and sends lots of environmental information my way. Most Natural Home readers know that LEED certification was developed by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Levels of certification reflect the number of points earned for building a home using methods and materials that increase its energy efficiency and decrease its use of natural resources and toxic materials. The guidelines describe many ways homebuilders can earn points, such as careful planning and management of construction, using environmentally preferable products and protecting indoor environmental quality. The total number earned determines if a home is LEED certified (45-49), Silver (60-74), Gold (75-89), or Platinum (90-136).

When John and I started talking about building a home, we knew we would aim for the highest LEED level. We wanted to co-create our home with our architect and builder, united by the LEED checklist as we made decisions about the house’s structure, building process and materials. That way we’d know we are doing the best we can to minimize our impact within our budget and square footage parameters. We’d have third party verification and documentation that the construction process is optimal for our health, and the health of our organic farm, as we build a durable and efficient house.

We encountered challenges such as local zoning regulations that do not allow use of graywater recycling or composting toilets. We discovered that Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood is not available locally and would have to be shipped from the Northwest (so we’re not using it). We have a creative team that is aiming high with us and expertly completing the extra documentation and work that is required for LEED certification.

I was surprised by the thickness of the LEED guidebook members of our team brought to the table, and by some discussions, such as the reasons concrete siding is valued over local quarried stone (we’re using some of both). Our rural farmhouse is not on a previously developed site and won’t be accessible to mass transit, so we can’t earn those points.

Visitors won’t see the wider spacing of wall studs that reduce the amount of wood use for framing, or the spray-foam insulation that is super-effective. They might not notice quiet and efficient Panasonic Green Whisper light/fans in the bathrooms. They won’t know that materials from construction are recycled (at no extra cost to our builders) or that Jason, our project manager, posted signs to educate workers about our geothermal system, rainwater harvesting and passive solar floor. They will see very efficient mats to clean their shoes at the doorways and places to store them inside entryways to protect interior air quality.

Our Independent Green Rater Carl Seville recently conducted the pre-drywall inspection, scrutinizing the insulation, joints in geothermal ducts and places where wires and hoses penetrate the shell of the house. He confirmed that we are on track for LEED Platinum certification.

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