Seattle will get living buildings, but when?… listening in on a living building charrette
Last week, I had the incredible good fortune of being invited to listen in on a living building charrette. If you ever have this opportunity, drop what you’re doing and go. It’s worth the effort.
This charrette was for a project developed by GreenFab, a team headed by Johnny Hartsfield. If you don’t know Johnny, this is from his profile: “After working as an
engineering technician for Snohomish County Surface Water Management and as a sustainable project designer for Mithun and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., he realized that developers, not designers, control our built infrastructure.”
So Hartsfield formed GreenFab and is in the process of developing a modular living building house. He envisions his project being well-priced, easily replicable and super green. (He also has a great blog here that he has taken a break from recently. He promised me however that it would be up and running again soon.)
The charrette last week was the first step in developing that project and seeing how it would really work. Just listening to the differing viewpoints between the people in the room - and then between the “greenies,” if you will, and the folks representing the modular construction company, Guerdon Enterprises of Boise, was fascinating.
For example, one of the living building challenge prerequisites says that a building either needs a green roof or needs to be set above the ground, so as not to take away
from the site’s ability to perform functions of natural hydrology. One of the gentlemen from the modular company was pretty disturbed by the idea of raising a house above the ground and the living area that would create for vermin below. He said he could not imagine anyone wanting to live in a house above the ground, or seeing that as an attractor.
But the whole point of this project, Hartsfield said, is to educate people and change opinions (while of course also creating a profit to keep the company in business). He said, “I’m doing this because I don’t want to work in any system that’s out there now. I’m tiered. I’m pissed off. And we’re going to get there…. Our job is to create the demand.”
What do you think? Would you ever consider living in a building that was sited above ground? If a living building was available to you that cost around $120,000 plus the cost of land …. so let’s say $400,000 on the low side - would you do it? Or would you stick with whatever you can find in Seattle for that price?
You can weigh in below or answer my new poll at right.
Hybrid Architects is designing GreenFab’s modular home. Bright minds that attended the charrette and were fleshing through ideas included Jon Alexander of Sunshine Construction, Mike Broili of Living Systems Design, Judith Heerwagen of J.H. Heerwagen & Associates, Jonathan Heller of Ecotope, Chris Meek of the UW’s Integrated Design Lab and Sage Saskill of SAGE Designs NW, among others. Marni Evans of The Living Project led the charrette.
On the other end of the fence, the Bullitt Foundation is also planning to develop a living building. I wrote about this in today’s paper here. The Stranger asked some great questions about urban density in regards to the project here.
What exactly the Bullitt project will be is still entirely in the air, though it could be a five story mixed-use project with retail, office and residential. More to follow later as the project progresses.
Bullitt also recently held a living building charrette, though I wasn’t invited to that process. Teams tend to be a bit cagey about letting a reporter sit in and hear the process of arguing through and figuring out what a project is going to be.
But listening in on GreenFab’s process was invaluable to me. So if you plan on developing a living building, please send this reporter an invite!
Tags: Living Building, modular, Seattle
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June 17th, 2009 at 2:58 am
I think that home would be perfect for places that hae flooding this could prevent a lot of people loosing their homes during these times but this would also depend on what and how the stilts of the home have been made.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:32 am
It is great to hear that Johnny and his team are working an a project that is pursuing Living Building Challenge.
One correction to your post:
Living Building Challenge does not require that a building either needs a green roof or needs to be set above the ground…
There are 16 prerequisites, 5 of which are directly attributed to the Site and Materials Petals. For people who want to learn more about the Challenge, a copy of the current standard can be downloaded at http://www.ilbi.org.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Well the stilt idea would be nice for flood areas I suppose, but in general it just sounds impractical, and you would have to raise it enough so that small animals wouldn’t seek shelter in the small dark space below. (Not to mention your cat when she goes to have kittens.) and the unnecessary stairs would be a natural deterrent for the elderly and people with children.
I would design the house with the living roof and let people order it unplanted or with different plant sets to match their tastes and Geographic area. I know green roofs can be expensive but in the context of a ‘factory built” situation much of that cost would be mitigated. I recently interviewed an “after market green roof installer and she basically said much of the added cost is in ensuring that the house is structurally sound enough to support the three to five time greater weight of a living roof. If these homes were designed around the idea of efficiency, the cost increase would at least in part be offset by the decrease in total cost of ownership (lower energy use)
Check out my interview: http://www.builditgreenconcepts.com/green-community/health-a-green-living.html
June 18th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Thanks for the great post Katie!
I wanted to mention one thing related to the elevated vs. grounded home discussion. The homes we are designing and eventually producing are not dependent upon being raised on concrete piles. This characteristic might be one solution or option to the “Living Building Package” we will offer but it is not necessarily a prerequisite.
This first ‘deep green model home’ and subsequent homes will be designed and built to meet, at minimum LEED Homes Gold. Options will be available to home owners to purchase LEED Homes Platinum or Living Building Challenge level homes. Each home’s orientation will have features relative to and applicable to the specific site.
These homes will be available in a few months on a newly designed website, using state-of-the-art graphic and web development technology. It will be designed to give potential home buyers the ability to customize their own home. With this site, we aim to inspire and empower every buyer.
Each potential buyer visiting the GreenFab website http://www.green-fab.com/ will be able to click through a series of home options that allows them to customize their home based on a series of predesigned packages.
Stay tuned for the website launch in the near future and I look forward to many future discussions and comments. These homes are, afterall, designed for you.