Modern day pioneer John Wells is doing some interesting work in Alpine, Texas. On his desert swath in The Field Lab, which is also referred to as The Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory, Wells is living off the grid and maintaining an interesting (and humorous) journal in the process.
Since we last mentioned his efficient home built for under $70,000, Caleb Schafer's been quite busy. He has a new website for Simple Modern Homes with a number of new home designs. He's also doing new work with new clients, and one home in particular looks interesting. Referred to as CL24, the design is for a 2,000 square-foot green home in Canyon Lake, Texas.
The architect and company that brought us the Bike Arc modular bike park system is now behind the House Arc modular system. House Arc was designed by Joseph Bellomo and the prototype shown in this article is being finished for a client in Hawaii. The modular home is built with a lightweight frame of steel tubes and set on a few concrete blocks. When finished, it's supposed to be strong enough to withstand tropical winds and weather.
According to the Miami Herald, architect Andrés Duany has created a temporary house -- referred to as the "core-house" -- that can be made of a strong, composite material and flat pack shipped to Haiti. The prefab houses sleep eight, if arranged with the bunk beds, and can expand with additional core units. Duany believes they could be built affordably in order to provide a temporary shelter from the elements and rain.
Part of an abandoned, former industrial site in Oakland is now Ironhorse at Central Station, a 99-unit affordable housing development. Owned by Bridge Housing, designed by David Baker + Associates, and built by J.H. Fitzmaurice, the ~$41.4 million project includes one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments for families with incomes ranging from $18,000 to $50,000. Ironhorse is a fascinating display of green, affordable housing that's also solar-powered.
This school in the village of Granados in central Guatemala is a fascinating display of ingenuity and recycling. According to an article in The Oregonian, Peace Corps volunteer Laura Kutner came up with the idea of finishing the construction of a school with the abundance of plastic waste in the area. With the help of the local community, volunteers from Hug It Forward, and $3,000, the school was completed and painted in a vibrant orange color.
After the setting of 13 factory-built boxes and the completion of construction, these net zero energy homes were opened to three low-income families in Lafayette, Colorado. Referred to as the Paradigm Pilot Project, the development includes one single family home and a duplex. The project was designed by HB&A Architects and built by All American Homes of Colorado for the Boulder County Housing Authority.
It's always nice to hear how good companies are helping the world.* I've just learned about one to keep an eye on: Containers to Clinics. C2C is a start-up non-profit that's retrofitting shipping containers for use as health clinics that cater to women and children's needs in the developing world. Their prototype container clinic is currently under construction with Stack Design Build in Rhode Island and should be complete in mid-November.
In the past few weeks, the Brad Pitt Make It Right foundation in New Orleans has been blanketed with all sorts of good press. The USGBC declared Make It Right to be the "largest and greenest single family community in the world." One of the newest homes in this green community is the FLOAT House by Morphosis Architects, which was designed and built under the direction of Thom Mayne and with the help of numerous UCLA graduate students. The FLOAT House is a prototype for prefab affordable housing that is adaptable to flood zones worldwide.
Today at West Coast Green 2009, Green Horizon showcased their new SFH40 on-demand housing, and it's an impressive unit. Designed to be a self-sustaining home for a family of four, it can be shipped anywhere in the world in a standard shipping container and set up in less than two hours by unskilled people. Each unit has two bedrooms with built in furniture, a bathroom, and a kitchen area. But it's also designed to be a self-sustaining shelter in the aftermath of a disaster when infrastructure may be damaged, so it includes solar panels and batteries, a bio-diesel generator as backup, and water purification equipment. Units can be interconnected to share power and water.
