In this morning’s Austin American Statesman, on the front of the real estate section, is a 1,000 word article and photo gallery by Tobin Levy on Reclaimed Space. Tobin nails it, telling our story better than we can, and since a link to her article is far better than a summary, I’ll just quote some of my favorite phrases:
the house is unmistakably green
The resulting space is elegantly spare
the interior, a paradigm in spatial efficiency, is warm and inviting
It’s the epitome of modern sustainable living
a match made in eco-heaven
a stylish medley of rich textures, bold colors and a piece of faux taxidermy
Late in the interview (which you can listen to here), Terry Gross comments that Cash seems to be part of a recent trend of noteworthy singer/song-writers “turning to other people’s songs. And Cash responds:
You know, people who weren’t around to hear Patsy Cline’s version of ‘She’s Got You,’ or a song like ‘Take These Chains,’ or never heard Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music or Hank Snow or any of these people. So, I always felt like, you can’t imagine the Scots or the Irish without Celtic music,” she says. “You can’t imagine us, the Americans, without these songs. They are so important to us. You know, it would be a tragedy if they were just, you know, you had to — if they were just in a museum, or if they were just archived somewhere; if they weren’t still being performed.
It’s a stirring thought that Cash’s album is more than a cover or an homage, but part of a larger obligation to preserve our musical cannon.
Expanding that thought further to the concept of reuse, how beautiful is it then to consider reuse not only in ecological terms, but also in terms of the materials’ cultural value. Vintage and retro, then, would be more than trendy, but also ethical and responsible.
Lifecycle building is the design of building materials, components, information systems, and management practices to create buildings that facilitate and anticipate future changes to and eventual adaptation or dismantling for recovery of all systems, components, and materials.
Designing for reuse is the ultimate way to preserve the embodied energy in building materials. It’s about more than keeping material out of the landfill, it’s about keeping labor and time and vision and history out of the landfill. We embody more than our resources into wood and metal. We embody our lives, our culture our community into our homes.
Lifecycle building incorporates into the design the ability to adapt to future conditions, but included in that adaptability and conservation is preservation. Reclaimed Space is unique however, in that our incorporated adaptability is not in the form of designed-in deconstruction, but rather mobility and modular construction. We incorporate the deconstruction and reuse on the front end, conserving and preserving structures never considered for use beyond their initial implementation.
Our’s is simply another approach to reducing construction waste, to providing better and more appropriate housing, to standing taller and looking further towards sustainable living.
Let’s stand up on World Habitat Day and let it be known that affordable, adequate housing should be a priority everywhere—in our communities, in our towns, in our country, in our world.
The United Nations has designated the first Monday each October as World Habitat Day.
This year on Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C. and around the world, please join Habitat for Humanity in support of this global observance as we come together and declare that the lack of decent, affordable housing is unacceptable.
According to the United Nations, more than 100 million people in the world today are homeless. Millions more face a severe housing problem living without adequate sanitation, with irregular or no electricity supply and without adequate security.
Reclaimed Space has just this week partnered with First National Bank of Bastrop to offer 5-10 year loans with as little as 15% down for their small, sustainable homes.
Reclaimed Space homes are already substantially more affordable than the average home. This is because they make use of reclaimed materials, use smaller floor plans and build their homes in a quality and process controlled facility. Once delivered, these homes continue to save money by conserving energy through passive solar design, cross-wind ventilation and a single-pitched roof optimum for incorporating solar panels and a rain catchment system.
The partnership with the First National Bank of Bastrop is important because, especially with the homebuyer tax credit, it makes these sustainable homes more affordable to first time homebuyers. And every Reclaimed Space home built represents more valuable home materials being reused instead of discarded, valuable resources conserved, communities uplifted and local craftsmen employed.
I showed our demo home to a gentleman last week who was wants us to build a recording studio in his backyard. We had a great discussion about the materials, the patina’d metal and the old growth wood. But I asked him how these materials would affect his music–wouldn’t it interfere?
It turns out that’s exactly what he was looking for. He knew the wood and metal would affect his music. His only requirements for the studio were that it be insulated from disturbing his neighbors, but he wanted the unique acoustic properties of our structures; that is no consideration whatsoever for acoustics.
He wanted his music to sound connected to a specific place, to be free of the emptiness and sterility of a typical recording studio. He knew there’d be interference in the sound, but it would be unique and relevant to him.
I love that idea of hearing the materials, that they can tell their story in the grain and mill patterns and wear and also acoustically.
The IRS requires that you: -Purchase your home in 2009 -Have not purchased another home within the last three years -Make less that $75k/year (single) or $150K/year (married) -Make this your primary home -Don’t sell the home within the year
And the IRS defines a home as:
It can be a house, houseboat, housetrailer, cooperative apartment, condominium, or other type of residence.
So you don’t have to worry about definitions like prefab or manufactured or modular. Very cool, huh.
The Austin American Statesman ran an article yesterday on the front page listing the Top 10 Users from the Austin Water Utility. The article goes on to list the names and addresses and amount of usage from the top-10 consuming homes in Austin for July and June and notes which homes have made the list more than once since February.
The article does far more than shame overconsumers; it serves as a benchmark for our growing culture of conservation.
Amy Hardberger, a water policy specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said listing the heavy users can help with conservation efforts. “We’re a community with shared resources, and having people accountable to neighbors about a shared resource is important,” she said.
We are all holding ourselves to a higher standard of sustainability. Smaller footprints are becoming increasingly attractive. And even though there is little market incentive for sustainability, consumers are making better decisions for the planet and their neighbors of their own accord, creating a third, green axis to the supply and demand graph
The Statesman article illustrates our impact on one another. And it indicates a shift in attitudes on consumption. Citizens and consumers are more interested than ever in the intangible, unquantifiable, whole-process features of their purchases. Where was it made and by whom and with what is becoming almost as important as how big is it.
Everyone’s familiar with our Dwell on Design Reclaimed Space, but there’s not yet as much buzz about our Austin Green Living Expo model. Right now we have this kickin’ cabana that won Best in Show at the Expo here in Austin. It’s wide open with with great ventilation and is reclaimed from the hardwood floors to the doors and windows, walls and ceiling–everything but the framing members and utility fixtures. We’re really excited about this model that we see at home both on the range and on the Third Coast. Here’s some pics:
Earlier this year, we brought one of our homes to Los Angeles for the 2009 Dwell on Design LA convention. It was a great opportunity being surrounded by such amazing new products and designs and especially working with Ecofabulous and the eBay Green Team. We auctioned off the home at the end of the convention for $75,000, $10,000 of which went to Habitat for Humanity in LA. Here are some photos from the convention from the folks at Angeleno Magazine.
