Dubbed BARNagain,  this LEED Platinum-certified home was designed by Rick Hauser of In.Site:Architecture to meet the client’s request for an energy-efficient house that utilized materials from a deteriorating barn for its structure and skin.

The main structural elements of the home were built using timber frames, while reclaimed barn siding served as the exterior skin. Salvaged barn framing was also used for flooring, ceilings, drywall, and decking.

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One of eight winners of the 2013 R+D Awards that were presented by ARCHITECT magazine, the ecoMOD Project is an effort of project teams at the University of Virginia (UVa) to work with affordable housing organization in the creation of low-impact, energy-efficient housing units. Project teams are made up of UVa faculty and students of various disciplines that have collaborated on the design, build, and evaluation of twelve housing units that are located on eight sites.

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Incorporated in 1839, Chattanooga, Tennessee was a boom town by the time the railroad arrived in 1850. “Where the cotton meets the corn,” Chattanooga had a strategic cultural location between the north and the south, which put it in proximity of some of the worst of the Civil War battles. By 1969, the industrialized city of Chattanooga had been declared by the federal government to have the nation’s dirtiest air.

Shovel all the coal in

Gotta keep it rollin’

Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

-from Chattanooga Choo Choo (words by Mack Gorden, music by Harry Warren)

Recent efforts by the private and government sectors to revitalize areas of downtown and the riverfront have won the city several national and regional awards for livability, excellence in housing, and consolidated planning.

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