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.