100K House Blog

Stumping for Votes: JDR Blogger Awards

Nic Darling — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:40:46 +0000

We haven’t lost a web popularity contest in a few weeks so we thought we would take this golden opportunity. Jackson Design and Remodeling has chosen us as one of their favorite “Construction Business” blogs and pitted us against our fellow internet ramblers. You (and a couple hundred of you friends) could be a big help in turning the voting to our favor. Just head over to JDR and vote for the 100k House blog as the best Construction Business blog. At the very least your vote will give us a little false confidence before our inevitable defeat.

In all seriousness, we want to thank JDR for the honor of the nomination and thank all of you who will take the extra couple clicks to vote for us. We are always glad to see evidence of appreciation for the amount of time and effort we put into this blog. Hopefully, with your help, we can continue to make it a better and better version of itself.

Tezuka Architects Japanese Design Inspiration

Chad Ludeman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:02:45 +0000

I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Takaharu Tezuka of Tezuka Architects give a lecture at UPenn recently. Tezuka is one of my favorite Japanese firms that has been producing amazing homes for about two decades and is getting into some interesting larger commercial commissions as they have grown in the past 5-10 years. If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you probably have seen some of their work in our inspirational posts. Tezuka’s lighting designs gave us confidence that the bare CFL’s in our homes would not only work, but look better than most traditional recessed lighting layouts.

You’ll notice in the picture of the Tezuka’s above that they are wearing blue and red. One of the interesting and quirky things about them is they always wear the same thing. Mr. Tezuka said he has about 100 of the same blue shirt that also comes in long sleeve versions. He wears blue every day, while his wife wears red, his daughter wears yellow and his son has claimed the color green. They are making me revisit my desire to simplify my life by going out and buying 20 of the same grey t-shirt.

On to the architecture. Below I wanted to quickly highlight the three projects that Tezuka spoke about in his lecture.

The Roof House

The first project is one of their most famous works titled “The Roof House.” The most interesting thing about this house was the overall approach to the design. The Tezuka’s visited the family’s current house when they were hired to design them a new home. The first thing the family showed them was a very small and quite steep tiled roof section that they could access through a small window. The entire family, including the small children would climb out on this roof almost daily to spend time together eating meals or just chatting.

This visit inspired the Tezuka’s to build a very modest house that was all about the roof. You can see below that the living quarters are very small and minimalist which is fairly standard in Japanese architecture. The big difference is the enormous roof that includes a mini kitchen, a fireplace and even a shower. The family can access the roof through a series of small ladders and skylights, mimicking the method of entry to their old roof through a small window.

This house reminded me a bit of how many of us live in tight quarters in Philly and other dense cities in the US. We often have a very modest flat or rowhome with a tiny outdoor yard, balcony or roof deck that can capture the majority of our free time when the weather’s nice. It’s interesting to see this concept taken to the extreme in The Roof House.

Fuji Kindergarten

I think this Fuji Kindergarten was my favorite of the three works Tezuka presented and one I had not seen before. There were a hodgepodge of buildings on this site that made up a kindergarten with a somewhat secluded and gloomy playground area. With Tezuka’s new design everything about the site and those that interacted with it transformed. The way the children learned and played was transformed and vastly improved. The public is also attracted and invited onto the round deck on a daily basis to enjoy a site that they would’ve probably passed by without noticing in the past. To me, this building project represents a lot of the reasons we got into development. We don’t just want to develop buildings that look cool and lower utility bills. We want to transform the way people live, work and socialize. We’re working on the first of those three now and hope to get to the others sooner than later.

This building is basically a giant doughnut. What’s unique about the interior space is that there are no dividing walls whatsoever between the classes. There is movable furniture and organizers that can be re-arranged to alter the classrooms as needed. The children are not distracted by what’s going on in the center of the building or the noise from there fellow classmates in the next section over. They learn to work in a typical environment at a young age. Another positive impact that the new building has had on the way the children learn is the flexibility of the classes. If a child is getting bored, behind or ahead in one class, they are free to move on to another class in the building. This keeps things interesting for the children, keeps them learning and ensures nobody is falling into a rut in their learning and social development.

Woods of Net

The Woods of Net pavilion replaced an old pavilion that held this unique piece of artwork. Daily attendance rose from 20 people per day to over 4,000. ‘Nuff said.

Tezuka has many other projects listed on their site. It’s very much worth a couple of minutes searching through for inspiration. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Awesometown Community Informational Meeting

Nic Darling — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:36:03 +0000

Many of you have heard of our collaborative project with the NKCDC that, for reasons understood only by those who can truly fathom the Postgreen-team mind, has been dubbed Awesometown. In fact, many of you have probably even customized a home in the project over at the Postgreen Homes site. This post is, unfortunately, not going to shed much new light on the project, but that is only because we want to provide basic details to the community directly first. As fortune would have it, we will be doing just that tomorrow night.

If you live in Philly, particularly the Fishtown neighborhood, we invite you to come out and get some information on this exciting project. The NKCDC and members of the neighborhood ad-hoc committee will be covering the complicated past of the project, and we will be illustrating the redemptive future (we hope). Now that’s a fun Tuesday evening . . .

What: Informational Meeting on the Awesometown Project
Where: Fishtown Rec Center (map)
When: Tuesday, March 9 at 7:00 p.m.

We are very excited about this project and will talking about it more here once we have introduced it to the neighbors. While it isn’t a voting situation, we would love to see those of you in the area out to learn more and show your support for sustainable development in Philadelphia.

Let us know if you are planning to come in the comments, or just chime in with a thought or question.

Skinny Project: The Ground is Broken

Nic Darling — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:16:32 +0000

Despite the rainy cold weather we have started digging for the Skinny Project foundations. Hopefully this will set us up to make some real progress over the days of nice weather that Mother Nature has kindly scheduled for us. If all goes well we should have our footers poured by Friday and be ready to get these things up out of the ground we have just broken.

We will be trying to document this project in as much detail as we can. Expect ongoing pictures and videos as this hole in the ground becomes three homes. As always, if you have any questions or comments, let us know in the comments.

Images of Living in the 100k

Nic Darling — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:38:54 +0000

We decided to take an afternoon this week to take some photographs of the 100k as it is currently being lived in by Chad, Courtney and Teague. It was a good time hampered only by a tired Teague and my very limited photography stills. Despite those limitatios, we think we got some pretty good shots that illustrate one way to use the flexible space our LOFT model provides. Here are a few of my favorites and there are plenty more on our Flickr page.

These images were somewhat inspired by our new found fascination with the Unhappy Hipsters site. So, if you have any captions you would like to give us for these pictures, have at it in the comments. I think you might come up with some particularly good ones for this pic (it already makes me laugh) . . .

I would like to remind all of you of those who have helped us out with artwork and furniture throughout the house. Artists Jon Olivieri, Chris Clarke, Marie DesMarais, Sam Wittchen, Matthew Hollerbush and Bruce Reinfeld have art featured in the 100k. Fosters was a great help in furnishing the house, as were specific designers like Kaleo Kala (kitchen stools), Bench Dog Design (reclaimed wood table) and my father Curt Darling (still need to make the man a website) who made the birch ply cat box you see in the corner of the above picture. We highly recommend the work of all of these people and thank them for their involvement.

If you have any questions or comments on the pictures you know where to put them.

Moving from SIPs to Double Stud Walls in Skinny

Chad Ludeman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:48:36 +0000

In our first few projects at Postgreen, we used EPS SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels) for our exterior walls and roofs which were very popular with the kids. We have decided to move away from SIPs in the Skinny Project in favor of using Advanced Framing Techniques and a Double Stud Wall design. Many of you have been waiting for an explanation as to why we’ve made this change, so let’s dive into it.

Why do we SIP no more?

First of all, we really have nothing against SIPs in general. We believe they are a great “hybrid prefab” type of product (along with ICF’s) and similar panelized systems. The main reasons we are moving away from SIPs are due to the challenges of our tight infill lots in Philadelphia. Many times the lot lines do not line up as drawn, foundations are out of level and neighboring homes are out of plumb. Since we are sharing party walls in every home, we have no room for error. The panels are ordered well ahead of time and they come perfect with little room for error. In the first two projects there were enough site modifications of the SIPs needed to negate the time and labor savings most SIPs projects are able to capitalize on.

If we were building detached homes, I’m fairly confident we would still be using SIPs as they offer a very tight and well insulated home with virtually no thermal bridging. As we get into larger projects, we may revisit the technology, but for now we are moving on to more traditional framing with some tweaks.

Double Stud Walls

First of all, we are using a double stud wall design on all of our front and rear facades. We are using a simple design that includes two 2×4″ walls on 24″ centers with a 2″ gap between the two walls. The studs are not staggered, but aligned with each other to simplify framing. We will be using CertainTeed Optima Blown-In Fiberglass Insulation in this 9″ thick wall that will result in a minimum of an R-38 wall. The 2″ separation of the studs will remain at the window and door openings, with the windows & doors being installed on the exterior wall. One could argue, and I would, that this reduces thermal bridging levels below SIPs benchmarks as most SIPs still include 2x rough openings that run from exterior to interior layer of OSB.

If you are thinking that we are foolish for not staggering our studs, I have included this lovely diagram for you above. This diagram is taken from a study done by the Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings or CARB. These bright people had the same question we all have about double stud walls late at night – should we stagger these studs or not? They used state of the art heat tranfer simulation software to develop 10 different THERM models of double stud wall designs. The five with aligned studs are shown above.

The results are that staggering the studs on our 9″ wall would result in an increase in R-value of less that 0.5. Even more interesting is that the 7″ wall with touching studs will only reduce the R-value by 1.0 compared to including a 1″ gap.

Advanced Framing Techniques / OVE

Next, we have employed some typical Advanced Framing Techniques or Optimum Value Engineering (OVE) into our latest envelope design.There are many benefits to using OVE framing techniques, that sadly, most builders have no interest instituting into their buildings simply because it’s not what they’ve done for the past decade or so… Some of the basic advantages include reduce cost in lumber, reduced framing waste and improved energy efficiency due to higher levels of insulation.

There is a beautiful diagram below that illustrates some of the key framing strategies. Here is the list we are using:

All framing is on 24″ centers with floor and roof trusses in alignment with wall studs. This reduces thermal bridging and increases the overall wall R-value as more insulation can fit into the walls with less studs.
Two-stud corners are used to again reduce thermal bridging at critical corner details and pack in more insulation.
Right-sized headers and insulated headers can greatly improve insulation values at leaky window and door sections. We will be using 2×4″ and 2×6″ insulated headers at most windows and doors compared to the standard 2×12″ uninsulated header used by many builders.
Hanging floor joists from top plates – We actually improve on the detail shown below by eliminating the often leaky and poorly insulated rim joist detail completely.

That’s it for now on our new envelope design. We’ll get into more detail as we build the homes. If you’re thirsty for more details, the links below are some great sources that were used in the writing of this post.

Source Documents:

Toolbase Advanced Framing Techniques (check out PDF also)
Dept of Energy – Advanced Wall Framing (PDF)
CARB News – Double Stud Walls: Staggered or In-line? (PDF)

Only One Home Left in the Skinny Project

Courtney Ludeman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:31:05 +0000

We are happy to announce that Lot 2 in the Skinny Project was put under contract yesterday, and we are all very excited to have a new owner as part of the Postgreen family!

This means that we only have one home left in this project. For all of you out there who are interested, and have been waiting until the last minute to make a decision . . . the last minute is here. Lot 3, the final remaining lot, features the SKINNY model, our newest and most flexible floor plan. Everything in the home is arranged along one wall, leaving an open flexible space on both floors for you to work with. We also include movable closet units on the second floor that can be used to create and recreate rooms as the whim takes you. As an added bonus, this lot also has the largest yard of any in the project!

With Mother Nature’s cooperation, we hope to be breaking ground this week. Once this happens, we will be placing orders for flooring, counter tops and other finishes. If you are thinking of buying and looking to customize, time is running out. Head on over to Postgreen Homes and design your Skinny House while you still can.

If you want to be the final piece of this project contact me soon or have your real estate agent do so on your behalf. I can set up a time for you to visit the 100k (our model unit), answer any questions you might have on buying one of our homes and even write up an agreement of sale.

That ends the sales pitch. If you have any questions or thoughts, we’d love to hear them in the comments.

House Tattoos Revised

Nic Darling — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:45:10 +0000

As we approach groundbreaking (pray for a good concrete pouring day), we have continued work on the Skinny Project’s distinguishing feature . . . House Tattoos. The strategy for the tattoos remains very similar to what was discussed in Brian Phillips recent post, but we have made some considerable changes to the content. The goal is a move toward more abstraction and hopefully a design less attached to a specific time or place.

Whatever design we eventually settle upon will still be executed by the artist and silk screening guru Candy Depew. She will print the design on our fiber cement panels which will then likely be clear coated to protect the work. We plan to document her progress so be sure to stay tuned for plenty of pictures and videos.

Below are a few recent design ideas that we like. Take a look and let us know what you think. We need to make a final decision in the next week, and your input would be greatly appreciated.

As usual, I have my favorite, but I’ll keep it to myself until the readers have spoken. Let us know which design you think should be featured on our next three homes.

Do it in the comments.

Frequently Asked, Frequently Answered

Nic Darling — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:35:37 +0000

This post is a little cry for help. No, not like the time I got caught pocketing Necco Wafers at the 7-Eleven. This is more of a straightforward cry for help. It is a request for the assistance from our ever insightful readers. Only this time, we are looking for questions instead of answers.

We have recently added an FAQ page to the Postgreen Homes website, but it is hard to be sure we are covering all the common queries. It is also difficult to be sure if the answers to the questions we have captured are sufficient. So, we are turning to you.

If you have time, we are asking that you take a moment to visit our new FAQ page and read it over. Then, using the comments, tell us what questions we missed and what answers seemed lacking. Feel free to be as critical (or complimentary) as you like.

Thanks in advance for your help, and now . . . to the comments.

Postgreen Homes Concept: Three Bedrooms in 16 Feet?

Nic Darling — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:05:21 +0000

Our current line of houses covers a significant portion of those looking for a new urban house, but we have gotten a little bit of a hard time from those who have a couple of kids and still want one of our homes. This has been particularly the case for those who have a girl and a boy (we are firm believers in bunk beds for same-sex child situations). In response to this small, but insistent minority, we have put together a little concept.

This idea doesn’t have a name yet but you can certainly hit the comments with suggestions. We have basically put a master suite and two small “children’s rooms” on the second floor while maintaining the wide open floor plan downstairs that we think works so well for families. Check it out . . .

You will note that the master bedroom has a nice big closet and there is another closet in the hallway. The “kids” rooms are definitely on the small side, but so are kids, and if you had doubts about the size issue, you can always go back and read my thoughts on the issue. We think that a loft bed situation would make great sense for older kids. This would give them a cool place to sleep and still leave most of their room open.

This is still a very preliminary idea, and we would love to get your feedback on it. Take a look at the drawing and tell us what you think in the comments.