Reviewing "Toward a Zero Energy Home"

A few months ago in late spring I read Toward a Zero Energy Home - A Complete Guide to Energy Self-Sufficiency at Home by David Johnston and Scott Gibson.  Or shall I say devoured it hungrily.  I read it on a cross-country flight in one sitting.

2010, The Taunton Press

The book begins by making a great case for the zero energy house by framing the view through the energy price bubble of 2008 and the need to shift behaviors moving forward.  Ironically in the spring of 2011 we were experiencing another price bubble seeded by political instability driven by the unprecedented democratic spring of Egypt, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.  Once again prices spiked ever higher over the course of late winter and spring.  Fairly quickly it seemed, world-wide strategic oil reserves were tapped to temper the price spikes and people's fears abated but high prices linger.  Today, the US Energy Information Agency says gas prices are up $0.91 from a year ago.

If you consult the EIA's interactive tables and build predictions out to 2035 you'll find an average yearly growth rate of 3.5% for residential fuel oil costs.  So in about ten years prices may rise 35% over today's already high rates.  With the unpredictability of the global geo-political climate and growing effects of global warming, growing population pressures and scarcity in fossil fuels, radically reducing energy consumption is urgent.  More predictable energy costs and growth in resource conservation is critical to creating a more sustainable future "softening the hard landing to come" as said by Bill McKibben in his recent book, Eaarth.

While residential delivered energy consumption has been going down historically in a gentle slope since 1990 the EIA forecasts four different scenarios showing reductions.  The reference light blue line models this continuing fall while the magenta (high tech usage) and green (best available technology) go even lower.

As energy costs continue to escalate residential users will naturally seek to conserve.  The space between the purple and green line is where Toward A Zero Energy Home plays an important role today in driving best practices  in zero energy home design into the marketplace towards consumer acceptance.

The book is organized into five chapters; The Building Envelope, Passive Solar Design, Renewable Energy, Heating-Cooling-Ventilation, Living a Zero Energy Life.  In each chapter they provide helpful overviews going over the basic components, design strategies and approaches with insightful case studies from around the country relating to the chapter focus.  The case studies provide wisdom from the field about how projects develop and mature between owners, architects, builders and energy consultants.

I recommend this book.  It tackles a very complex subject and breaks it down to basic elements where the complexity supports the big picture of why certain strategies are valuable varying by budget, climate, owner likes and dislikes, project delivery methods scalable for a variety of situations.  Whether seeking to do a custom design and build home, or hybridized process with some level of factory panelization and custom building, or finally, full out factory built and controlled modular home with quick onsite assembly the book has insights valuable for all.

The book also shows how fast moving high performance building science and knowledge truly is.  After this book came out, Alex Wilson's published a groundbreaking article in Environmental Building News on the Global Warming Potential of Foam Insulation.  Their research led to a wholesale re-evaluation of the viability of using closed expanding cell foam and related insulation materials in building envelopes because of the long-term costs of using fossil fuel as blowing agents.  Many of the case studies homes in the Toward a Zero Energy Home used closed cell insulation in some aspects of the building envelope.  The new research indicated the need to look more closely at using open cell insulation or other more benign alternatives such as cellulose insulation instead going forward.  Hindsight is 20/20 though and admittedly best practices will always be evolving to ever-higher standards.

Net Zero House Watercolor Sketch, Work on the boards

Watercolor rendering by Stephen M. Frey, AIA

Design Process

I've been working on a house for a friend over the last half year.  Here's a recent watercolor sketch snippet of it. This post focuses on the design process of the watercolor sketch. 

3d Rendering by Bensonwood Homes

3-D to Watercolor

The 3-D perspective massing was built from a basic model from Bensonwood Homes which is collaborating with the owner and I on the project. They built it from the 2-D drawings I had created in AutoCADLT.  I imported it into Sketchup where I used it as an underlay with shade and shadow.   I created a pencil sketch where I embellished the finished materials such as siding, windows, and heavy wood timber framing followed by landscaping around the building showing how it fits generally to the site.  The building is partially about how it is situated in a clearing on a gentle mountain ridge with great views to the West.

Part of the fun of this kind of presentation sketch is creating a sense of heart and soul for the project through the act of rapidly synthesizing by hand site plan information, building orientation, and traditional architectural drawing info.  This avoids excessive computer modeling time noodling around with plantings, topography, contours, and model lighting within the computer.  For me, it's also about bringing the design idea, in this case, a home, to life through the hybrid actions of 3d modeling, hand drawing, and watercolor painting.

After creating the watercolor, then comes scanning the image into Photoshop and adjust the scan to match the liveliness of the watercolor work on paper.  I do this by manipulating contrast and tonality.  You can also touch up the image with color fills which I didn't do to help with shade and shadow.  Once you've scanned the image into the proverbial "box" there's lots you still do.  ....Or not which is the case here.

I'll be creating additional watercolor rendering images in the coming weeks of this project and sharing some of the backstory here.  What do you think about this drawing though?  Any suggestions on areas to improve?  Other techniques I should try?  Tell me about your favorite architectural illustration and why it was successful...or not so favorite.  What do you think about this composition?  Does it convey the idea I was hoping for?  Don't be shy.  I want to continue to learn and cultivate these abilities and compositional strategies. 

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture

Getting to Zero - White Paper on Zero Energy and Net-Zero Buildings and Homes

Happy Earth day! I hope you're finding interesting ways to celebrate it in your community.  Here's a way to celebrate online.  Check out this interesting white paper from Building Design and Construction.   For readers in the building industry, architects, homeowners, building committee members, facility planning professionals, construction professionals, building owners and engineering consultants it covers an important trend towards zero energy or low energy usage buildings helpful in fighting global warming and green house gas emissions.

Is Net-zero energy the next frontier in green building?  I'm not sure about that.  But the BD+C paper addresses this by sharing an overview of what does zero energy mean and how it can be applied to various situations.  There are numerous complex definitions which it takes into account and some very useful graphics which make it easier to understand.  It doesn't necessarily talk about the Passive House movement from Europe also penetrating the green building discussions but it's an important addition to the conversation of moving towards energy independence!

Bill Maclay, a leader and inspiration in net-zero design (and my former boss) was quoted in the white paper as well and their work with the Putney School has been mentioned on page 14 for the Putney Fieldhouse a fabulous example of a net-zero LEED platinum private school athletic building really changing the game on campus facilities.  I was part of the design team on that project and am really proud of being part of it.  If you're ever in southern Vermont and are curious about seeing the building contact the Putney School to arrange a tour.  It's a game changer, leaping out of the pages of the white paper into everyday experience showing the way towards a more energy-independent future along with the other case studies mentioned.

Take a look at the white paper and let me know what you think.  Do you have any examples where you live of similar zero-energy buildings you'd like to share with readers?  Any great experiences related to them to share with us on this special day?  This is important work to help out the generations who will follow us.  With net-zero energy buildings, we can make a difference for tomorrow and beyond! 

Next Steps

If you’re intrigued, let’s discuss adapting this white paper or aspects of it to create your dream home. Let’s design and build a place and space that reflects your style and values while honoring Vermont’s landscapes and sustainable living ethos. Contact us to begin this journey! 

You can find us at Arocordis Design, our residential architecture firm's website. Our home studio is located in Montpelier, Vermont. Happy to connect.  

Passivhaus to Our Haus?

Why the funny post title?  Well, I went to a conference last week in Burlington and came away wondering if the Passiv Haus movement is really accessible to the mainstream.  It's a play on words because I attended a presentation about a house which was titled "From Bauhaus to Passivhaus".   I commend conference planners for bringing together professionals with their case studies working on opposite ends of the spectrum; designers working for the rather wealthy 'spare no expense group' and those working with Habitat for Humanity,' let's figure out how to do this for everyone group'.  Somewhere in the middle we shall meet.

At last week's Better Building by Design Conference hosted by Efficiency Vermont I saw a handful of presentations showcasing Passiv Haus projects and their innovative design process as well as other super low energy net zero possible homes and projects.  I learned there is a little bit of controversy for some reason going on now in our community between engineers, architects and building scientists about how low is too low or over the top excessive in home design and performance.  And finally, how can Passivhaus and low energy/ net zero home design early adopters help move the residential marketplace toward a more positive energy efficient and resource conserving position?  How can they replicate and expand the learning and experiences upto a community and regional scale?  That's what it's all about.  How we can help soften the hard landing for coming generations Bill McKibben lately of the book Eaarth forecasts in our coming shared future? Well I now have a deeper understanding, albeit brief, of many of the issues at hand and passions uniting them.  And yes, there are some answers and there is hope.

What did I see and hear then...?
One was a renovation of a not so historic early modern Connecticut home designed by Ken Levenson of Ken Levenson Architects, P.C.  Another was a Habitat for Humanity home designed by J.B. Clancy of Albert, Righter & Tittmann Architects, Inc. who designed it in collaboration with Peter Schneider from VEIC (the mother company of Efficiency Vermont) and Preferred Building Systems out of Claremont, NH.  I also attended a spectacular presentation by  Marc Rosenbaum from South Mountain Company, a noted energy design consultant here in the northeast and Building Science Corporation's Kohta Ueno who did a great job standing in for John Straube who was unable to be there last week.  They started out as if they needed boxing gloves (actually not really...they're very kind and balanced engineers) but in the end there was much more agreement than consternation.

Where do I start...

Net Zero Low-Income Modular Homes in Colorado

I wanted to spread word of a model net-zero affordable housing project located in Lafayette, Colorado, a city located in Boulder Country about 40 miles from Denver and 10 miles from Boulder.

(image courtesy of BCHA)

The Paradigm Pilot Project, a single family home and a duplex showcase a mix of super-insulated building envelopes, smart site orientation and use renewable energy sources, combined with passive solar design strategies. The building design use a fairly straightforward modernistic vocabulary of 13 rectilinear boxes easy to manufacture in a factory setting. What's hopeful is this is an experiment of sorts to be studied and leveraged into a much larger 153 Unit housing project in the planning stages in Lafayette. It uses geothermal

The project was designed by HB&A Architects,and built by All-American Homes for the Boulder County Housing Authority. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory / Department of Energy were also partners on the project.

You can find out more about the project on the Green Building Advisor and later covered at Jetson Green. You can see helpful information about it at the Housing Authority's Website.

Here's a link to a powerpoint about the project from the BCHA site. The site also shows the construction process with highlights being the installation of the modular factory built units and solar system installation. One interesting note is the project used both evacuated tube type solar hot water and solar electric panels as part of the system. The jury's out here on the efficacy the evacuated tubes but it's interesting this technology was used on the project.

All in all, this project is an inspiration to those of us in cold-climate regions and of use to others close to home here in Vermont. Perhaps some of the lessons learned from this project can be used here on our affordable housing projects. I know Efficiency Vermont is doing it's best to partner with other non-profit and for profit developers and housing authority's to continually upgrade our housing stock, whether new construction or renovation. It's Multi-family Housing Design Checklist is a very thourogh guide helping with efficiency measures and low-energy usage. They also provide financial incentives and technical assistance to clients and project teams to extend the value of the check-list.

Perhaps with the far-away inspiration of the Colorado example and the close to home specifics of the Efficiency Vermont's checklist this will help move us forward!

DOE Solar Decathalon Winners_Let the Sun Shine on Innovation

When I was in graduate school in the the early 1990's sustainable design was just getting off of the ground in the way we know it now. (I know it's been around since Mesa Verde, but the current generation of thinking)

I wish programs such as the Solar Decathalon held each year in the fall in Washington D.C. were around then. It is sponsored by the US Dept of Energy and teams from universities and colleges from all across the world compete in it. It provides an oppourtunity for pursuing design innovation and experiential learning on a small solar home scale. What a fantastic all around oppourtunity!

The program has six-goals worth noting. The basic premise is to invigorate interest, research and developing marketable technologies able to be brought to the market-place. Another one is to help develop zero energy homes which is something many of us want to know more about.

The winners this year, especially the top three, offer a wide ranging view of how to solve the design challenge. Check out the winners! I wonder if teams from Norwich University or Yestermorrow Design Build School have ever entered? It seems like this program would be right up their respective areas of focus. I'll have to check with friends who teach there.

See photostreams of the homes on Flickr and Hi-res Gallery of Homes on the DOE site.

Enjoy seeing what the next generation of design leaders are up to!

An Earth Sheltered Net Zero House Sketch, an unbuilt project

An Earth-sheltered Modern Home Design

So often we’re inspired by nature and the earth. Here’s a watercolor, pen, and pencil sketch from years ago where firm principal Stephen M. Frey, AIA explored an earth-sheltered, nature-near home design on a south-facing hillside site with a lifted and separated curving green roof.

On an ideal site, the house would be a two to three-bedroom, two-bath residence with an open and interconnected kitchen, dining, and living space with three distinct zones with a great room feel. It would be a net zero home, a residence that produces the same or more energy than it consumes. We organized key bedrooms on the ends of the rectangular home volume with view windows to the outside.

A nearby garage and or barn space would supplement the home a short distance away. It could supply parking for vehicles, workshop and craft areas, accessory dwelling units, and long-term storage. To complete the integration with exterior design, a vegetable and flower garden would be nearby as well as other landscaping would be installed.  

Highlights of the Home Design and Space Layout:

The living areas front the building volume with easy exterior access to the continuous arbor-covered terrace and ample views of the surroundings. In a later design step, we will study the amount of glazing through energy modeling. Overglazing might cause overheating of the house and having to size up the air-conditioning system at a higher cost and energy use.

Biomorphic Structural System

The wooden glue-lam ribs of the home are akin to bones that spring from the earth! The residence transitions from the solidity and darkness found within the earth to the lightness of a forest canopy along the continuous south-facing porch and terrace area. An overhead wood timber frame arbor with solar control helps minimize summer glare while supplying a place for vines to grow. Timber frame posts and supplemental beams would abound in and out.

Solar Systems and Energy Independence

We imagine photovoltaic ground-mounted solar trackers in a nearby solar orchard a short walk away. They would tie into a nearby independent standalone timber frame structure that houses the whole house battery system and inverters. The building would bring power safely to the semi-underground home.

Daylighting, The Sun, and Nature Near

The south-facing window wall area and short ends would connect to near and far views of the site and beyond. We would tailor the home and site design to frame near and far views with window and door openings.

Dynamic top lighting from skylights and roof monitors activates interior spaces such as bathrooms, kitchens, and internal areas. Overhead, top daylighting from triple-insulated prismatic skylights lights these spaces during the day. At night, architectural LED lighting will highlight the underside of the curving structure. This will bring a day and night difference to the spaces within, activating them in unique ways at each time of day.

The Building Enclosure and Performance

The building enclosure would be super-insulated, suitable for the local climate and building traditions and regional preferences. It would follow at a minimum (R5/R15/R20/R45/R80) for windows, below slabs, walls in below-grade foundation conditions, walls above grade, and the ceiling as recommended by Joe Lstiburek, Ph.D., P. Eng. of Building Science Corporation. Windows of this home would have triple-insulated high-performance glazing with low-e argon-filled units with thermal spacers set within fiberglass and wood frames. Operable awning and casement windows would act in tandem with ceiling-mounted fans to circulate healthy fresh air in warmer times.

We envision the doors as made from fiberglass frames with thermally broken edges. The nature near Green Roof could be extensive or intensive depending on the client’s desires and structural capabilities, cost, care preferences for the plantings, etc. It would help with stormwater management capturing and filtering rainfall. Construction would follow aggressive air-sealing standards to further reduce energy loads by minimizing energy loss through cracks, corners, and joints.

The exterior rain screen siding could be cement-plank, cedar, or metal siding such as metal panels, corrugated metal, or 12-inch ribbed siding. Depending on the preferences of the client, we could mix and match artistically, connecting the home to the earth. Site-harvested flagstone, if available, could enclose lower portions of the exterior walls and site terracing.  

Interior Systems, Mood, and Character

A radiant polished concrete slab with decorative insets would supply heating. Air-air wall-mounted heat pumps would supply cooling and supplemental heating.

We would choose simple and restrained interior finishes, using local milled rough-sawn lumber or, if a client wants a more modern interior design, we will use finished hardwood standing and running trim with a contemporary design. Hand plastering or drywall would complement the interior. The doors and kitchen would have simply rubbed bronze hardware and pulls. Paints would be no or low-volatile organic compounds. (VOC).

Appliances would be high-performance Energy Star models to reduce energy use. We recommend all-electric, but it is important to have backup generators onsite in case of power failures and depletion of any home batteries. With Vermont’s increasingly warmer winters with wet snows damaging power lines, it pays to be prepared for anything and to keep climate resiliency in mind when planning and constructing this home.

Lighting

High-performance LED lighting would like the interior and exterior of this house and its site. We would specify a mix of dimmable low-voltage architectural lighting emphasizing the ceiling and exposed Glue-lam and timber-frame structure, as well as downlights, wall-washers decorative pendant fixtures, and sconces. A thoroughly thought-out lighting design like this would amplify the enjoyment of this home for years to come.

Local Materials

We envision focused areas that would have locally sourced stone areas using Vermont slate, granite, or marble. One could specify soapstone counters for the kitchen and bathroom vanity counters. Another area to plan is to use solar color shades and blinds from nearby manufacturers on the south and west-facing windows to control overheating and glare. We advocate the use of local milled lumber as well.

Next Steps

In our design for this unbuilt Vermont net-zero home, we seek to capture nature’s beauty with our sustainable and artful living mindset. From the curved green roof to renewable energy, and interior and exterior site connections, every detail supports living in harmony with the environment. 

If you’re intrigued, let’s discuss adapting this design or aspects of it to create your dream home. Let’s design and build a place and space that reflects your style and values while honoring Vermont’s landscapes and sustainable living ethos. Contact us to begin this journey! 

You can find us at Arocordis Design, our residential architecture firm's website. Our home studio is located in Montpelier, Vermont. Happy to connect.  

Net Zero Putney School Fieldhouse Well Under Construction

Construction of the Putney School Athletic Fieldhouse in Putney, Vermont is well underway this summer. Collaboratively designed by Maclay Architects and their consultant design team for the Putney School, built by Dew Construction, it's slated to be finished early fall. It also offers a continual learning laboratory in southern Vermont for zero energy buildings in the harsh northern new England climate, just a couple of hours south of the almost sub-artic climate of nearby Quebec, Canada. An essential learning tool for all to tap into is the Fieldhouse Blog available on the Putney School's website. Currently there is a post about cellulose insulation and it's installation as well as other posts detailing different aspects of construction over the last year or so. Students and faculty contribute to the blog which offers a view into the environmentally focused efforts of the school signaling it's leadership position in that area among other similar private schools in the northeast.

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I've been involved in the design of the school facility led internally by Bill Maclay and Bill Gallup in our office over the last year and it's been a pleasure watching it's progress knowing how important this building is as a positive model for the young high schoolers soon to attend the school next school year and for years to come. It's amazing seeing the leadership of the school board, teachers, staff and students produce such an exciting result with our collaborative design and construction team. You can also learn more about the Putney School from our website and the current projects link. My hope is this building is but the beginning for of an energetic movement in the construction of similar net zero K-12 school buildings. Check back towards the end of summer and early fall and I'll be sure to have another post then.

(image adapted from Putney's Field house Blog)