Making Good Homes: Beauty in Order

by Rolf Kielman

In a February blog post, Lee Grutchfield and I discussed the challenges involved in making good and affordable places to live. We’ve made some progress on this front, and we’re back to share what we’ve done to date.

The criteria, as we described it, is to design a home that is affordable, easy to build, healthy, beautiful, durable and energy efficient. We want to make these houses so they can be manufactured under controlled circumstances and then shipped in manageable parts to the building site. And we want to erect houses in 2 months rather than the 4-6 months often required for homes of modest proportion and size.

So together with Josh Chafe, our young and creative cohort, we have begun to define and execute homes that fulfill the criteria we described. Thus far we’ve been working with designs that are basically one room wide. We’ve looked at archtypes in the factory housing of Sheldon Springs, going back 25 years to work that Rolf did with Roland Batten, and we looked carefully at the houses strung along Mansfield Avenue in Burlington, Vermont. There are lessons in these houses worth studying, such as advantages in ventilation and ease of shipping attributable to building widths of one room.



We are also working on a standard system of dimensioning. This is not a new concept: witness Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses spread through portions of North America. Wright’s work exhibits both elegance and quiet beauty in the establishment of order and hierarchy. In this vein, we are utilizing modules of 48” increments and utilizing common window widths and room sizes to achieve this order.

In our work, we are utilizing a standard system of components applicable to homes of differing overall size. By this we mean that a single bathroom or kitchen layout can be used in a 1400 square foot house as well as one that is 1800 square feet. By using common components, we can drive down the cost and increase the efficiency.

In our sketches below we show 3 slightly different houses. They vary in size and program but have strong similarities. They exhibit options that will give home buyers discretion in how they arrange component parts. The designs can be pre-made or manufactured off site and they exhibit simple dimensioning systems that are economical and elegant. The designs run from 1400 to 2200 square feet and contain different program components for those with larger families or those who have chosen to work at home.

Our hope is to build several of these homes in a new development near Burlington. If you have suggestions, questions or comments, we would love to hear from you!

Two Vermont Schools gear up for Solar Decathlon 2013

As a dedicated reader of the TruexCullins Blog, you must know we are big fans of the Solar Decathlon, the biennial competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy that pits 20 collegiate teams against each other to design and build a fully self-sufficient solar powered home.  After all, we wrote about the event here, here, here, here, and, oh... here.

Last year was the fifth Solar Decathlon competition since its inaugural run in 2002.  And last year a Vermont school was admitted for the first time: Middlebury College, a small liberal arts school that has no professional architecture program to speak of.  In fact, since the Solar Decathlon began 10 years ago, Middlebury was the first liberal arts college to ever enter alone, without teaming up with a larger architecture or engineering University program.  Despite this underdog status, Middlebury managed to come in an impressive fourth place overall. And of the 10 competitions, they scored first in 3 of them: Market Appeal; Communications; and Home Entertainment (which was partially based on a dinner party featuring a home-cooked Vermont meal).

The plans are being drawn up now for the next Solar Decathlon, being held October 3-13, 2013.  For the first time, the event is moving away from the National Mall and heading west, where it will make a new home in California, at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, just south of Los Angeles.

The 20 student teams chosen to participate have just been announced, and we are happy to see that two Vermont schools will be competing this time.  Middlebury College will be returning to build on their successes from last year, and they will be joined by Norwich University. Norwich has a bachelor’s and Master’s program in Architecture, and we know they have been planning for the Solar Decathlon for a while now.

It will be exciting to see Vermont so well represented in the field of renewables on this national stage, and we wish the best of luck to both schools!

Stowe Home featured in Vermont Magazine

One of our recent residential projects has just been published in the latest issue of Vermont Magazine. 

“At Home in Vermont” tells the story of how this family’s home began from the small-house plans that Lee and Rolf developed during the depths of the housing crash in 2008.  The design was then tailored to the site and personalized for this client, who wanted an energy-efficient home that could support an active lifestyle.

Designed To Be Tops,

  from the Bottom Up

The concept for this home was one of a small, energy-efficient house that blended in with the land.

Lee Grutchfield likes to think that the path that led to his becoming an architect, and Principal with TruexCullins Architecture in Burlington, might be part of a tradition steeped in New England craftsmanship: apprenticeship, in which a potential architect learns to make a building from the ground up. Through hands-on experience, he believes an architect learns to intuitively understand acoustics, structural principles, mathematics, and the workings of natural light. Lee should know; he spent 14 years working as a carpenter prior to studying architecture at Norwich University, where he earned his master’s degree.

To read the rest of the article, pick up the March/April 2012 issue of Vermont Magazine at a newsstand near you!

Solar Decathlon Review, day 3: Our Favorites

This Sunday, October 2nd is the final day for public viewing of the 19 student-built solar-powered homes of the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall.  The excitement is building as the points are adding up and a winner is coming into focus.  Tomorrow, Saturday Oct 1st, the winner will be announced, the team that has accrued the most points across the 10 categories in fields such as architecture, engineering, energy and affordability.

Many of the houses incorporate some of the technologies and green design strategies that I described in yesterday’s post, but the best houses are the ones that bring it all together beautifully.  Here are 3 of our favorites:

LIVING LIGHT by the University of Tennessee

This house is based on the cantilever barns of Southern Appalachia, with an open plan anchored by a dense core at each end.  But the real intelligence is in the envelope.

The all-glass north and south elevations consist of a 16” thick double-façade system, with a fixed plane of glass on the exterior, alternating fixed glass and full-height casement windows on the interior, and internal blinds.  In the winter, the air space within the south-facing façade collects heat that is directed to an ERV, supplying the home with preheated air.  In the summer months, the system works in reverse, drawing fresh air from the north façade by the ERV and pre-cooling it before it hits the ductless mini-split units.  Exhaust air is directed through the south façade to cool the cavity and reduce heat gain.

Energy is generated from a 10.9 kW rooftop array of cylindrical PV panels.  Look closely: those are cylindrical tubes that make up the canopy over the south façade.  Thin-film PVs are wrapped around these tubes, collecting sunlight from any angle.  There is no need to worry about the correct angle of the panels here, since the cylinders absorb sunlight from all directions.

You can get more info on the University of Tennessee solar house from the project website, livinglightutk.com, including some great detailed descriptions and explanations of the smart façade, roof top array, and more, at: livinglightutk.com/smartsystems/

WATERSHED by the University of Maryland

This house is all about the conservation and management of our water resources.  Coming from the Chesapeake Bay area, the students of the University of Maryland drew inspiration from the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed and have designed a house that addresses the storm water issues that threaten this fragile ecosystem.

The form of the house is defined by two rectangular modules with a split-butterfly roof.  A 9.2 kW solar PV array covers one side, and a green roof tops the other.  Rainwater is captured from the roof and directed to a series of captured wetlands, where the water is naturally filtered by plants until it can be pumped out for reuse as irrigation water.  Greywater from the shower is also directed to the constructed wetlands for reuse.

 

 

Finishes include thermo-treated exterior wood siding of poplar and ash, and recycled concrete countertops.

This is the 4th time the University of Maryland has competed in the Solar Decathlon, and their experience is paying off: as of this writing, they are currently in 1st place.

More information on WaterShed can be found at the University of Maryland project website, 2011.solarteam.org.










 

SELF RELIANCE by Middlebury College

This is the first year that a Vermont school is competing in the Solar Decathlon, and as a Vermont architect, I’m happy to say that Middlebury College has put up an impressive first showing.

The Middlebury house, dubbed Self Reliance, is a modern take on the traditional Vermont farmhouse.  It hits so many of the themes we all associate with the Vermont lifestyle: natural materials, sustainable food production, and family-friendly spaces.

Wood floors were harvested from Sugar Maple trees on the Middlebury campus.   The kitchen floor and island countertop is made of local Vermont slate.  And the children’s bedroom furniture is made by our friend Lincoln Brown of Modern Vermont.

While most of the other houses on the Mall covered every possible surface with spray foam insulation, Middlebury came out firmly against the stuff and instead went with a completely cellulose-insulated envelope. They explained their approach this way:  “Conventional insulations such as fiberglass or spray-in foam contain particles hazardous to all forms of life. They are also non-biodegradable and require tremendous amounts of oil and energy to process.  On the other hand … Cellulose insulation is safe, low-energy, cheap, and – most importantly – natural.”

Self Reliance is focused on personal, sustainable food production.  A greenhouse wall in the kitchen is not much more than a system of shelves for growing potted vegetables and herbs, but it is centrally located and promotes home-grown healthy eating. By making this such a prominent feature of the house, the students are trying to highlight the connection between local food production and energy use.

This is a very family-friendly house, designed for a family of four, with a division of public and private spaces.  Most of the other schools seem to struggle with the space constraints of the competition, designing homes under 1,000 square feet with murphy beds, movable walls, and multi-purpose spaces.  Many don’t even have real bedrooms.  The Middlebury house actually has TWO bedrooms, and a play loft accessible by a metal ladder.

Middlebury is doing very well for this being their first time in the Solar Decathlon.  They scored 4th in the prominent Architecture category, and came in 1st place for “Home Entertainment”.  This is one of those categories that aims to show that these are real, livable homes, so the students had to throw a movie night and 2 dinner parties.  They probably won due to the delicious localvore meal they prepared, which their guests praised as being very “Vermonty”.

On Wednesday, Metropolis Magazine called Self-Reliance one of “the two most striking projects at the Decathlon”.  They described it as “a warm and straightforward modern version of a traditional New England home that beautifully uses native Vermont materials.”

You can read more about Self Reliance on the Middlebury College project website, solardecathlon.middlebury.edu

Congratulations to the Middlebury team and to all the teams at the Solar Decathlon, and good luck tomorrow as the grand prize winner is announced!

Solar Decathlon Review, day 2: Products and Process

There are a wide range of projects at the Solar Decathlon, where schools from 13 U.S. States and 5 countries are each building their own version of the ideal net-zero energy solar powered home.

The houses are built for different climates, cultures, and user groups, depending on the location and type of school competing.  But one thing is common for all the teams:  they have spent a lot of their own energy researching the best products and developing new design strategies for solar powered buildings.  I go to the Solar Decathlon to discover what the future holds, and I found plenty of new green products and design features.  Here are my Top Ten:

1.   Bi-facial solar panels:   These solar panels collect energy from both sides, collecting direct sunlight from above as well as reflected light from below.  It is one of the newest types of solar panels to hit the market, generating up to 30% more power.

The Solar Homestead by Appalachian State University made the most of this technology, with a huge outdoor space covered with a canopy of bi-facial solar panels set within a beautiful wood structure.  Every team distributed “take-aways” or brochures to those people waiting in line to tour the houses, and Appalachian State had a real clever way of tying their marketing materials into the design of the solar array.  Their brochure folded up into an origami hat, with a reflective silver exterior.  As crowds of people walked beneath the bi-facial solar canopy, light was reflected off their silver heads back up to the panels above, generating more energy, potentially pushing Appalachian State over the finish line.

 

2.   Smart home controls:  It became apparent pretty quickly what really set this competition apart from previous years: the iPad.  Home automation systems were all the rage this year, with iPads, smart phones, HDTVs, and even a hacked Xbox Kinect providing a greater level of control of all the home’s systems.  Many of the teams wrote their own apps, controlling everything from the lights to the heating and cooling systems.  The SciArc/CalTech team developed a system that provided real-time energy use and controlled the shades.  The University of Illinois had a very impressive high-density display that even told you which windows were open.

3.   ERVs:  When you live in a very tight super-insulated home, mechanical ventilation becomes necessary to provide enough fresh air to all the habitable spaces.  Energy Recovery Ventilators take the heat energy from the exhaust air (in the winter) and transfers it to the incoming fresh air. (or the reverse in summer)  Most homes in the Solar Decathlon utilized an ERV, instead of the alternative: an HRV, or Heat Recovery Ventilator.  An HRV also exchanges heat energy between incoming and outgoing air streams, but an ERV has the added benefit of transferring moisture in the air.  By reducing the humidity level of the incoming air on this hot and humid September week in Washington, less demand was placed on the air conditioning systems, saving more energy. 

4.    Liquid dessicant dehumidification:  A couple of the houses sported decorative indoor water fountains that were more than just pretty pieces of art.  The University of Maryland developed an innovative Liquid Dessicant Waterfall system (patent pending) that uses a high-saline solution to absorb humidity from the air, reducing the load on the mini-split air conditioners.  The transfer of moisture happens vertically within this glass box and is displayed prominently as a design feature in the room.

5.   Home-grown food:  Many of the schools explored the true meaning of sustainability by providing a way for their occupants to grow and harvest their own food.  Normally this wouldn’t play into the energy-focused categories of the Solar Decathlon, but this year’s competition included a Home Entertainment category, in which each team had to throw 2 dinner parties for their neighbors.  This was a chance for the teams to show off their home-grown foods.

The New York team oriented its kitchen directly opposite large glass doors that open onto the outdoor roof garden, for easy picking at mealtime. The garden produces about 190 pounds of vegetables, about half of the resident’s annual consumption.

The Middlebury College house features a green wall in the kitchen and outdoor planters for growing vegetables and herbs.  In lieu of a brochure, visitors to the house received a packet of seeds.

The University of Maryland used composted waste as nutrients for food production in their vegetable and vertical gardens.

6.  Phase change materials:  In order to minimize unwanted solar gain, phase change materials [PCMs] are used to store heat energy and slowly release it at night. At the Solar Homestead by Appalachian State University, a modern Trombe wall consists of a plant oil mixture contained in a series of vertical fins.  In the evening, energy stored in these PCMs is released as the wax resolidifies and transfers its heat to the house.

In the mechanical room, phase change materials are also used to capture and store energy from a solar thermal skylight.  The hot water-glycol mix from the solar thermal system runs through tanks of paraffin wax, which stores about 50,000 BTUs of energy.  This setup replaces a traditional water heater.

7.   Adaptable furniture:  By the nature of the competition, smaller houses have an advantage because they contain less cubic space to heat and cool.  But each house has to include the required spaces and amenities.  As a result, the students tend to come up with some clever space-saving solutions. We saw sliding walls, pivoting panels, and adaptable furniture.

SciArc and CalTech designed a family of upholstered lounge seating that nests like a puzzle into the wall when not in use.  The University of Tennessee house featured a retractable bed that disappeared up into the living room wall cabinet.  And the University of Maryland house had a dining table that folded open into a bed.

8.   Micro-inverters:  With a solar PV array, an inverter is needed to convert the DC-current that is produced by the solar panels into the standard AC-current that is used in the home. Typically, a single inverter is used with a whole array of panels, but if one of the panels is shaded or dirty, its limited output will be reflected in the whole system.  Micro inverters are used so that each panel can operate at its maximum capacity.  Many of the schools used micro inverters, with one connected to every individual panel.  In this setup, each panel operates at its own peak level.

9.  Water Reuse:  The collection, treatment, and reuse of rainwater and greywater is an important aspect of many of the houses.

The outdoor planters of the SciArc / CalTech house are connected to the greywater system and are automatically watered based on weather forecast data.  WaterShed by the University of Maryland is designed with two sloping roofs that direct rainwater to a constructed wetland, where it is stored and filtered for reuse for irrigation.

10. PV solar shading:  Rather than being content to apply their solar panels to their roof, some of the teams elected to hold them off the house, creating secondary structures.  The University of Tennessee and Team Massachusetts  both created solar canopies in front of their buildings, which provided a shaded area outside, and cut down on direct solar gain hitting the windows of the front façade.  By removing the PV panels from direct contact with the roof, this also allows for ventilation on all sides.  This keeps the panels cooler and lets them operate more efficiently.

The best houses in the Solar Decathlon incorporated many of these products and features, and did so with consistency, harmony, and beauty.

There are only 2 days left until the final winner is announced.  To learn more about all the teams and follow the current rankings, go to solardecathlon.gov.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up my review of the Solar Decathlon with a shorter list of my overall favorites.

Solar Decathlon Review, day 1: Market Appeal

 

I just returned from the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC, where 19 teams of college and university students are competing to design and build the best energy-efficient house powered by the sun.  Each school has constructed their home on the mall, a net-zero building between 600 and 1,000 square feet.

This is the fifth US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, and there are a few noticeable differences since it first started in 2002.  The biggest change is the location.  Previously located on the main stretch of the National Mall, under the shadow of the Washington Monument, the event this year was relocated to a slightly more remote location, on the edge of the Tidal Basin near the FDR Memorial.  (The Park Service claimed the construction vehicles were destroying the grass. Jeesh!)  But being off the beaten path didn’t seem to do anything to keep the crowds away, as long lines began forming by early afternoon on this overcast Saturday.

The other major changes to this year’s Solar Decathlon have to do with the structure of the competition itself.  Each house is measured or judged in the following 10 categories:

• Architecture
• Market Appeal
• Engineering
• Communications
• Affordability
• Comfort Zone
• Hot Water
• Appliances
• Home Entertainment
• Energy Balance 

It seems the Department of Energy has an agenda this year to spread the message that going ‘green’ is affordable and within reach, so they’ve tweaked the rules a bit to appeal to the skeptical American homeowner.  

One of the students on site explained to me that at the 2009 Solar Decathlon, the winning German team spent $1.2 million on their house, covering every possible surface with PVs to maximize their energy production.   Up until now, students were rewarded for producing surplus energy beyond net-zero.  Each team was given an electric car to drive around town on the surplus energy they produced, racking up miles and points.

In response to the excessive spending, a few changes were made that alter the focus of the event.  First off, a new category was added this year: Affordability.

Each house is assessed by a construction estimator, and if the total cost comes in below $250,000, the team is awarded the full 100 points in that category.  As the cost goes up, the number of points are reduced, down to zero points awarded for a cost of over $600,000.

In addition, there are no longer any rewards for producing surplus energy beyond that which the houses consume.  At previous Decathlons, the houses were off-the-grid, so each home relied on a large bank of batteries to store extra energy.  This year, there were no batteries in sight.  A miniature utility grid was constructed on site, and no additional points were awarded for energy produced beyond net-zero.

Closely related to affordability is “Market Appeal”.  In this category, each team determines who their target market is, and their house is judged on its livability, constructability, and “curb appeal”. 

One of the most often asked questions is where the house will be when the competition ends.  One of the teams chose to leverage the affordability aspect and design their house for a family in need through Habitat for Humanity.  The Empowerhouse is a joint venture of Parsons the New School for Design and Stevens Institute of Technology.

Another school, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has designed their house as a rapid-response emergency solution for areas affected by natural disasters.  The Re-home can be deployed quickly as an affordable, self-powered source of shelter for those left homeless.

The most unique approach I found to market appeal was from the City College of New York.  Their Solar Roofpod is designed to be placed atop an existing mid-rise urban building, taking advantage of underutilized roof space and feeding energy to its host building below.  

But enough about affordability and market appeal.  Let’s talk about what we really look for in the Solar Decathlon:  technological innovation, creative solutions, and new products that have been exhaustively researched and fully vetted by passionate students out to change the world.  Big solutions to the big problem of global climate change.

Tomorrow I will share some of these new products and creative strategies that I found at the Solar Decathlon for making a better net-zero solar powered home.

Lead-up to the Solar Decathlon, Part 2

At the Solar Decathlon, which opens this Friday on the national mall, 19 teams of college and university students will be competing in 10 categories to see who can design, build and operate the most energy-efficient and beautifully designed solar-powered home.

What makes the Solar Decathlon so successful is that it is a competition between teams of college and university students.  The fact that it is a competition is a great motivator to maintain the level of energy needed for a project that takes about 2 years to develop and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fundraising. Once on site, the competition aspect adds a level of excitement that unfolds a little bit each day as points are awarded and a winner emerges.

That these houses are designed and built by college students is key to the role of the Solar Decathlon as a forward-looking research project on emerging green design and construction methods.  (It's also a great way to engage the public to be able to connect with your alma mater, or to the school in your community.)

The Solar Decathlon is more than a showcase of current technologies... it is more than a home show.  After a long process of research, design, development, funding and construction, the competing teams often discover new solutions and develop new building methods for creating better, more comfortable and energy efficient homes.

Past Solar Decathlons have led to patents on new building products, and past Solar Decathlon teams have gone on to create architecture firms to continue their work that they started here.

This year, Middlebury College is competing as the first Vermont school to enter the Solar Decathlon and the first ever liberal arts college to enter the competition alone.  From the looks of things, they are going to face some stiff competition.

There are a few teams that I will be especially interested in when I’m on the Mall this weekend. One of these is the University of Tennessee, which has designed a house they call “Living Light”.  As you can see in their video walkthrough, the Living Light has a double-glazed façade with an inner air space that is used to help heat and cool the interior.  The house’s PV modules are cylindrical, something I haven’t seen before, designed to absorb more of the sun’s rays.

What makes the event so interesting is the range of very different approaches that each team takes.  Some schools opt to fit up a conventional home with solar panels to show that these technologies are within reach for the average homeowner.  Other teams choose to push the envelope and think totally out-of-the-box, disregarding cost or “market appeal”, in favor of innovation and invention.

One team in this latter category this year is the joint effort of SciArc and CalTech.  Their house – CHIP – is forward-leaning, futuristic and puffy. (yes, puffy.)   In this house, you use an iPad app to control the home’s systems and an Xbox Kinect to turn off the lights.  

Other schools competing this year include Purdue, the City College of New York, UMass Lowell, Ohio State, and Team Florida.  International teams are coming from New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, and China.

At past Solar Decathlons, students have built houses with soy-based SIPs, reclaimed shipping containers, and polycarbonate facades filled with translucent aerogel. Homes reduced their energy consumption with radiant cooling panels, phase-change materials, and ERVs with silica-gel rotary wheels. Landscapes were irrigated with greywater systems, facades were clad with copper sheets, and electric cars zipped around town on the surplus energy that was harvested from the sun.

In fact, the houses contained so many innovative features and materials that they were often criticized for being too expensive for the average homeowner. So this year, the list of 10 categories that comprise the Decathlon was modified slightly to include a new one: affordability.

In addition to displaying financial solvency, the students are judged on architectural design, engineering, and energy balance.  They have to boil water, run the dishwasher, and throw a movie night on the wide-screen TV.

It’s all an effort to show that these are real houses ready for widespread consumption.