20K Home

[20khouse]

Hello!

The past few weeks have been busy with building a spatial mock-up of the porch, calculating the foundation, and getting our construction documents ready to build. 

The spatial mock-up of the porch helped use determine the size and shape of the porch. It is important to us that the porch juts out in the back so that a ramp can be added if needed to be handicap accessible. The mock-up also helped us adjust the unit size (again), but now we have finally come to a decision of a 22x12 unit. We also decided to change the ceiling of the porch to exposed trusses rather than a covered ceiling. A lot of decisions came from experiencing it in full scale!

Last week Joe Farrugia visited the Rural Studio and helped all of the teams with structural calculations and answered our questions. Since our porch has its own independent structure, we needed to calculate the three components of the house separately and figure out the extra load of the roof on the rim joists next to the porch. 

Now we’re working on final construction drawings and designing a new mock-up that would help us figure out specific details. We’ll mainly be focusing on corner details so we will know if our drawings are absolutely accurate to how it will be built. Looking forward to Pig Roast which is in about 2 weeks!

Signing out for now, 20Kv20

[20khouse]

Greetings from the ECO Team! 

As you may remember, in our last post we were using REScheck and REM/Rate to rate the theoretical energy efficiency of the past 20k houses. We’ve also been out testing the actual houses with our data loggers and blower door tests. We’re also collecting, with the home owner’s consent, the electric bills from the houses. 

What did we find? For the most part, the past 20k houses are not doing too shabby... which means that it’ll be that much more difficult to improve upon them. 

 “Yeah, that’s cool. But what’s up with the design?”

We’re glad you asked. 

The ECO House will be fighting all the other 20k houses (not just Dave’s House) for the title of most energy efficient, and hopefully cost effective, home that the Rural Studio has ever built. That means that the strategies that we choose have to be very cost effective to make sense. We’re in the process of choosing those strategies right now. 

In the meantime, here are some of the trends that we’ve been finding in the 20k homes based on the foundation:

[20khouse]

Happy Wednesday from The Demo Team! 

Post Stress-Test: We are to proceed and be bold. 

During these past two weeks, we set our goals to build a mockup of our porch, begin our construction document set, and continue our research regarding marketing through speaking with local developers, Fair Housing Act, and ZIP panels, and storage. We are continuing to press on with our project proposal and push its possibilities into becoming a reality.  

What have we been up to? As pictured above, the inset porch of our design has been constructed as a mockup to help us test window/door placements as well as spatial and light qualities. This study proved that the porch we have been constantly drawing is NOT too deep, and the installation of solar tubes is not necessary on our porch because there is plenty of great light in the space. Especially with having a white color for siding, light is able to reflect and bounce around the space. And, of course, we have definitely learned quite a few things about how we will construct some of these components in the future. 

Just yesterday, we had the pleasure of having, Associate Director, Rusty Smith come by for a review! We had a very helpful discussion about how to push the porch to become something more for the home, how the flexible living space and primary living space could potentially have different relationships with the porch, and how to get the most out of our mockups.

Our next set of goals are: to build a second and very detailed mockup of three key walls in our design, meet with a local developer, conduct a post-occupancy interview, finish up our construction document set, further develop the porch, and refine the final design of the home!  

Ciao for now~

[20khouse]

Hello all!

The past few weeks we have been vigorously working on trying to figure the details and the size of the porch, as you can see in the above section perspective. Also, as you can see, we have picked a scheme: THE LONG! It was very difficult for the team to let the L plan go, but with the end of the semester nearing, we need to put all of our focus into one house. Some reasons we chose the long were: the one move roof, the ease of construction, and the long fits the concept better. If the house is going to be an opportunity to make the owner income, then the long gives the owner and renter more separation which leads to why we introduced the private entrance for the unit. This allows the main porch to solely be for the owner if he/she is renting to a random person, but if a family member is staying in the unit then the porch is open to both. The privacy situation was thoughtfully brought up in our review in Auburn with Professor David Hinson, the head of Auburn’s Architecture program, and Rusty Smith, the Associate Director of the Rural Studio. We had a long excellent discussion and now we’re working towards the end of the semester and getting ready to build. We look forward to having another review with Rusty next week and with Joe Farruggia in two weeks. 

[20khouse]

Greetings from the 20kv19 Eco Team! 

We’re excited to share our progress with y’all! Since our last post, we built a mock up to test the spaces in the house. It really helped us visualize the spaces and see what was too big, what was too small, and what seemed to be the right size as only a full-scale mock up can. 

Above is the living/dining space on the right and the left would be the kitchen bar. 

After the mock up we were challenged to pare down and synchronize the design into the “one big move.” With that advice in mind, the team decided to really push the comparison between Dave’s House design and the Eco House. If we could change only a few things about Dave’s House in order to make it more energy efficient, what would they be? Our priorities are to make the most appropriate passive design for this climate, maximum occupant comfort all year long, and lower energy usage, respectively. Below are the SIX things that we’re thinking about changing:

Orientation: Broadside faces 10° East of South. This is one of the simplest things to do to increase the shading and minimize the amount of energy needed to heat and cool the building. 

Monopitch: Roof faces South. This design varies from the 20k’s usual insulated box + hat approach. It maximizes cross ventilation and allows the hot air to evacuate the space in the summer months. 

Windows: Big windows on the south to let the winter sun in and high windows on the north to vent the hot air in the summer. 

Insulation: Bring the wall and roof insulation up to 2015 energy code and then add rigid on the outside to get rid of thermal bridging. 

Foundation: Put the house on a slab on grade. The slab will help reduce air changes, along with providing a thermal mass to heat and cool. 

Porch: Shading the south windows is imperative in the summer. The designed porch will let in a good amount of light from the winter sun as well. 

One of the biggest challenges this project faces is what to compare our house to in order to rate the design’s success. Updating Dave’s House design will give us a nice benchmark, since there are 3 different Dave’s House designs available to us. 

We’re working on getting the electric bills for these houses and all of the past 20ks. Comparing the electric bills will let us see what a 20k is costing its occupants to heat and cool. Many of our clients use propane to heat their houses in the winter and we’re taking that into consideration. 

In the meantime, we’ve been comparing the houses in REScheck and Rem/Rate in order to see how the real life houses stack up. 

Peace out from the ECO TEAM. Go enjoy this amazing spring weather. Open a window and turn off a light :)

Newbern, AL

High of 85!!!!

Wind SSW @ 12mph

Humidity 36%

Sunrise 7:01 am 

Sunset 6:59 pm

Moonrise 12:09pm

Moonset 1:19am 

[20khouse]

Greetings from the Eco Team!

Since our last post, we’ve made the decision to move forward with the entire house model. This means our project will be equipped with both a bathroom and a kitchen, and will be more comparable with other 20k houses in both size and function.

Because the house is so much bigger and the results will be more long term, a large part of our project will be what our team passes on to the future students of Rural Studio. We’ve begun to lay out a template for a log book that keeps track of the occupant’s activity, the energy used in the home, and the general climate information of the area.

Were now working on material studies, like the one in the .gif above. Can the house look like it has a tighter building envelope? What if the layers peeled away to show what was underneath? Stay tuned for our next iterations.

Coming to you from the Rural Studio World Headquarters in Newbern, AL: Sunny High of 66° Low of 38° SW Winds of 16 mph Humidity of 38%

[20khouse]

The crew is all back together! It’s great having Nathaniel back, happy and healthy! 

The past few weeks 20K v20 has been working on more technical aspects of the design: how the house will be put together. We’ve been working on figuring out the structure of the foundation, which we luckily have a lot to go off of from the previous 20K Houses since the house will be raised on piers. One thing that we are addressing is the fact that the previous houses have been very low to the ground which makes it difficult to put in floor insulation and plumbing. We have determined that the house will be raised at least 2.5′ from the ground to the joist. In addition, we’ve been studying and drawing details to figure out how the house will connect with the porch. The porch is one of the most important spaces in the Income Home so the details and construction need to be seamless to make that space special. 

We are still working with both the L and the Long plan, and we will be fully designing both. The facade is different for both since the long is 38 feet longer from the front so we’re doing elevation tests. In addition to the different facade views, we’re testing the elevation to see how the house will touch the ground or cover the gap between the house and the ground. It’s all in the details. Looking forward to our review with Pete Landon this Friday to see how he can help and push us further to reach the final goals. 

Signing out for now, 20Kv20

[20khouse]

Happy Tuesday from the Demo Team!

We’re back at it in full force once again. Within the last two weeks, we had the pleasure of having reviews with Peter Gluck from New York, Katrina Van Valkenburgh + Mike Newman from Chicago as our guest critics.

Here is where we are in the project, currently: down to one plan + initiating the detailing process!  After taking the floor plan through an infinite amount of iterations, we tested different family scenarios in the floor plan through “[Atelier] Bow Wow” drawings.  We have imagined the extreme - however, very real - scenarios as well; such as, challenging the 2-bedroom home to potentially house 6 people, perhaps more!  We have concluded that the one floor plan that we moved forward with gives a clear diagram and provides a flexibility that is very much needed in multigenerational families and affordable homes.  But, of course, design is never finished!  There are a few things to rework: add a window in the front facade and squeeze the sqft. some more.

Now, we are placing studs in our walls, getting the windows and doors spec., detailing our corner connections, deciding between “R” metal panels or hardie plank for the exterior siding material, and deciding between fiber cement panels or hardie plank for the in-set porch walls. Also, color palettes.

Lots to do before construction, but we are on our way!

Ciao for now~

[20khouse]

Greetings from the 20kECO House… man, have we been busy!

We have had a handful of critiques since the last post, and they have all really helped us to develop a better argument and design for the ECO house. The strongest steel goes through the hottest fire, as they say.

We’ve decided to let the Rural Studio be the client to this house. This is mainly because of the difficulty our team has faced in accessing the previous 20ks. Also, this means we can run tests on this house that we wouldn’t feel comfortable doing on a house owned by one of our neighbors in Hale County. The idea is that an upcoming thesis student would live in the house full time to record data and help simulate a house that would be otherwise occupied by a traditional client of the studio. Hopefully, this will yield long term results that will inform the next generation of 20k houses.

There are two ideas about where this house could go. One idea is that our team designs two “pods” devoid of a kitchen or bathroom that would be very similar except for a few key details. Having two would allow the studio to have a constant while running tests. This method would give us the most accurate results for the tests we have set up because we can test the two against each other at the same time. However, it has been questioned whether the data might be skewed because of the lack of cooking, showering, etc. going on in the pods. This leads to the next option, a one-bedroom house that would be monitored in a similar way to the other 20k houses. The data collected from this house would be more comparable to the data collected from the other 20k houses.

At the same time we’ve been working on details for the house as well as some of the house’s formal moves. So far, we’ve been running with the singular house idea. Below are some updated designs and action shots:

Coming to you straight from Newbern, AL... High of 63° Low of 35° Precip 0% Winds NNW @ 5-10 mph Sunrise: 6:43 am Sunset: 5:42 pm Moonrise: 2:13 am Mooset: 1:03 pm Moon Phase: Waning Crescent A good night for stargazing!

[20khouse]

Well, we’re back in action after a much needed winter break! Here is a synopsis of what we’ve been up to since our last blog post. Before we left for the break, we had our semester review, also known as Soup Roast. There were many VIP’s there to review our work and we got valuable information and feedback. Steve Badanes, Jim Adamson, Miriam Gee, Jake LaBarre, and Dick Hudgens were just a few of the acclaimed guests along with many Rural Studio alumni. At the review we were working with two different versions for the house: the L-scheme and the long bar scheme.

Since we’ve gotten back, we have had Neck Downs which we helped the current Super Thesis teams for the week. We moved wood, painted, organized, moved more wood, cleaned, drilled, dug, fixed lights, and moved even more wood. We finished out the week with a celebratory dinner in honor of the first week ending and enjoyed cake for a very special person’s birthday. This week we will be working on figuring out how to roof the L-scheme house, revising the plans, visiting previous projects, porch studies, and making models. Also, we have been working a man down since our teammate Nathaniel has been home sick. We miss him very much and are hoping for a full recovery soon! Keep him in your prayers along with the loss of our beloved studio cat, Patches, who passed away last week. RIP little kitty and get well soon Nate!!

[20khouse]

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay, but we have updates! Last semester, we set out some criteria for how we want to design this 20K home. Through these rules, we developed many floor plans that have evolved into the basic floor plan we have now. This floor plan has a back bar of service and night time spaces, and two living spaces with a porch in between. This porch serves as a flexible space that blurs the barriers between interior and exterior, as well as provide opportunities to let in light and ventilation. 

[20khouse]

Greetings from the ECO House! We have a lot of juicy info to share with you, so sorry in advance for the long post! In our last post we wrote a little bit about the “test house” we’re working on. This study will be crucial for our understanding and assurance of our passive schemes. We are unsure of how many test houses that will be built, but below are the candidates so far. The schemes mainly focus on exploring roof orientation and porch location. All of the sections are 14′ wide (pretty darn skinny!) to allow maximum cross ventilation and solar heating efficiency. The idea of a loft is also being tossed around because it allows the user easier access to the high window, and because it puts them up higher in the winter where all the hot air will settle. Roof Plane facing North / Porch on the South

Roof Plane facing South / Side Porch

Roof Plane facing North / Side Porch

Roof Plane facing South / Porch on the South

Below are some screenshots from a wind study done in a Revit plugin. First, you can see wind flowing from the left to the right over a monopitch. This simulates a roof plane facing south.

Next, wind flows from right to the left to simulate a roof plane that faces the north. This tells us that when the wind blows from the south (the predominant wind direction in this area) it counteracts the stack effect by reversing the flow through the high window. Once again we reach a contradiction. This orientation seems to be better for solar gain, but less appropriate for ventilation.

You might also be wondering why the windows in these sections are so low to the ground. Well, we did some research and the lower the window, the more light hits the slab. Who knew?

Coming to you from Newbern, AL High of 66° Low of 35° Humidity 50% Southeasterly winds @ 4mph

[20khouse]

Greetings from the Eco House!

So, just how does one begin to design a house that incorporates passive heating and cooling strategies and is also affordable? Some have called our mission impossible. But we don’t scare that easily. Above are some diagrams representing the decisions we’ve made and some options we’re considering.

As you can see, we have discussed (sometimes argued) everything from building footprint and orientation to fancy alternative heating systems and green roofs. Through research, advice from experts, reasoning, and experiments, we’ve been able to narrow the building down to...*takes deep breath*...a long and narrow building built on a slab oriented to the south with a mono pitch roof with high windows on the tall side probably with earth tubes somewhere and a porch with some type of moveable shades...whew.

We’ve also been presented with an opportunity to mock up our ideas in order to test the effectiveness of the passive strategies. The team is currently working on the designs for the mock ups, which will essentially be small sections of the larger house to be built.

[20khouse]

Our first step as a team was to dive into demographics research. This meant looking at pages upon pages of census data, and trying to draw some meaningful conclusions from it. We looked at everything from how many children live with only their grandparents, to how many houses have dining rooms. This is what we concluded: on a national level, a new household type that can change our housing design considerations is on the rise.

 This household type contains an “extra” member that is not included in a typical nuclear family, e.g., a mom, dad, and kids. This extra family member could be a grandparent, an aunt, an adult son, a family friend, or even someone renting part of the home. In the United States, thirty-eight percent of multi-person households have these members. We believe that this percentage is a significant part of the housing market, and their needs should be considered. Furthermore, with multigenerational households increasing from 3.9 million to 5.1 million in only ten years, we believe that this percentage will continue to grow.

 When zooming in to Hale County, we found that even more multi person homes (44%) are of this new household type. Based on the average income of a four person household in Hale County ($30,051), we believe that we should design an affordable option for this household type. So far, the 20K House has designed two bedroom homes with one large combined living/dining/kitchen space. With the flexibility of two living spaces, family members can do activities that require quiet, such as a child doing homework, while others can do things that are louder, such as watching tv or cooking in the kitchen.

[20khouse]

It’s #givingtuesday, everyone! We need YOU to show some love and support of the 20K and donate to the projects for Tiger Giving Day, We are trying to raise $20,000, which will be matched by 2 donors, thus raising $60,000 for the three houses getting designed and built this year!

Stay tuned and donate here: https://rise.auburn.edu/project/1207

Check out this time lapse on what it’s like to build a 20K home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChJMT7-G1x0&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for everyone’s support and War Eagle!

[20khouse]

October brings a lot of excitement in the studio with our annual Pumpkin Carve event and with the famous Halloween Reviews. This year our team dressed up as Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons: Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal, from the popular Game of Thrones series. It was unclear who intimated who(m) more-- the reviewers or the dragons? The studio was lucky enough to be reviewed by acclaimed architects, professors, and engineers such as Marlon Blackwell, Mary English, Scott Finn, and Tim MacFarlane.

In this review, we explained that we have narrowed down our schemes to three plans: the Chubby Bar, the T-scheme, and the L-scheme. All of the schemes have a porch connecting the main house with the extra unit, creating a dogtrot style house. The porch is an important element to the house since it acts as a transition space and an exterior room.

The benefits from having the house in the L or T shape is that they make the house feel bigger, engage the outdoor spaces as a formal yard, and will be the first 20K to turn a corner. However, the Chubby scheme would have one continuous roof which cuts down cost and allows for east construction. Our critique of the different iterations went well, but some things we need to work on are how to incorporate more services for the extra unit such as the bathroom, washing machine, and kitchen. We are looking into which services should be shared if the owner decides to have a renter living in the unit, but we all know everyone needs their privacy! 

Signing out for now, 20Kv20

[20khouse]

After developing our idea and doing a bit of research, we moved onto developing plans. Many, many plans. As a team, we determined what the underlying ideas of the house were, and what design moves we should make to support it. 

Separate, but Connected

The parti for our house is: “separate, but connected.” Living in two separate buildings, the occupants should be able to live relatively independently. However, it is important that the opportunity to have shared services (such as the main house’s kitchen and living room) is created. It’s important that the house reads as one, visually and performatively. 

Centralized Porch 

The centralized porch is a communal space that can be used by all occupants. It’s an entry threshold in many ways, but it can be more. We began to think about factors that define how the porch would be used. In some of our iterations, sliding barn doors that close it off at night change the dynamic of the space. During the day, the porch is open-- an entry way or sitting area. At night, it closes off the house for security and the entire house itself acts as a barrier, or wall. And occupants are able to gain an enclosed room inside. 

Flexible Unit

The additional unit is another important part of our project. The idea is that anything can happen here. A renter’s unit, guest house, bed-and-breakfast, home office, arts and crafts room, yoga studio-- you name it. So how can this small, less-than-300-sq.-ft. unit be so flexible if you have to include areas like a bathroom and kitchen? What appliances are “fixed” and what can be added on? These are some of the questions that we’ve been asking ourselves. 

Being at an early stage of design, we wanted to try out as many schemes as we could that executed these ideas in a strong and clear way. Here are some of the moves of our early iterations:

Long Bar & Chubby Bar- Single or double loaded bedrooms are placed together on one side of the house. This is to keep the potentially shared services closest to the porch. Living / kitchen / dining are grouped together into one large room. Various iterations test out different room sizes and entry orientations. 

“L” Scheme- Single loaded bedrooms create a lengthier main house that frame a courtyard space. 

Sliding Bar- Using the original idea behind the dogtrot house, daytime spaces are separated from the nighttime spaces. 

Wild Card- Breaking up the shared spaces and bedrooms, they’re placed around an outdoor communal space. 

“T” Scheme- Bedrooms are placed on opposite ends of the main house, which creates an efficient, corridor-less plan.

Whew, that was a long post. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg (!) Signing out for now, 

20Kv20