A House for Slow Living - an older bit of philosophy

I haven’t been writing much in the blog these past few years as communication seems to come mostly through instagram. I miss the longer form of writing and putting an entry together. This was a past piece that I often return to. To see how I am doing perhaps. To make sure I don’t stray too far? Sketches from this post keep appearing in publications including the “Pretty Good House” book.

hearth

house for slow living

A House for Slow LivingThe original concept came to me in a dream (yes – I dream architecturally) I think the dream may have been generated by this image which has been on my bulletin board fora few years: The original sketch was called “a house for food”

The core concept was centered around the growing, preparation and consumption of food which lends itself to the idea of gatherings of family and friends and leads to the notion of how to live in a close relationship to the local environment. From my own experience I drew upon the old fashioned ideas of hunkering down by the fire on a cold winter evening, opening the house up to the sounds, smells and breezes of a summer day, “putting food by” and making routine preparations for winter in the Autumn, starting seedlings on a windowsill in the spring, caring for children or elders. Also, how can we appreciate the beauty of the winter landscape and light without feeling overcome by it. This is a common issue in the Northeast. Where do you sit to watch a thunderstorm rolling in or to watch the snow fall? Music! – not just acoustics but around here, everybody is also a musician. How does that fit into our daily lives? Much inspiration is to be found in images and stories depicting rural life from previous times in Europe and America. I am drawn to the imagery of hard working English country houses where the real life of the house centers between the kitchen and the door stoop leading directly to the working yard and gardens. Think: Peter Rabbit in Mr. McGregor’s Garden by Beatrix Potter with a potting shed, cold frames and lots of cabbages. I am fascinated by early New England farms and town dwellings and how lives were played out in them. Not the big events but the little, day to day, season to season routines. Light and fresh air are celebrated and sought after and even, perhaps, taken for granted in an age before television and telephones. Materials are worn but durable, practical and show their age and history and that is where their beauty lies.

The Building Science aspect of design and detailing that we are all so immersed in lately addresses the idea of being able to lock the door and walk away for a month in the winter and not worry about much of anything. The neighbor has the key and will water the plants. Building Science addresses being what we are calling “net zero” so you are not storing and burning fossil fuel on site and paying for it as well. Building Science addresses the notion of simplicity – who needs a heating system that could go on the fritz and bust your pipes and freeze all your house plants so when your neighbor comes over to water the house plants, he finds an awful mess and has to call you in some recently devastated country where you are doing relief work. Building Science allows you to return in March to a house filled with fresh air and no mildew. (building science can’t help with what you left in the fridge) Building Science can free you from many previously taken for granted maintenance issues and expenses such as painting and periodic repair, maintenance and replacement of the mechanical parts of the house because now you have fewer and simpler systems.

How then, to marry my heady and romantic thoughts with the physics of modern building science? How do I pack all of this sensuality and feeling into a house that celebrates the process of living this chosen life rather than reminding one of the potentially inherent drudgery? Since these ideas are very personal to me, it isn’t very difficult to make a series of design moves and decisions that bring me pretty close. I have been moving in this direction for much of my life. I am often “pretty close” but getting to that higher level is tricky and elusive. I’m not there yet with this design but it’s still early….

early plan sketch in my sketchbook

main living spaces

Southwest view

view from NorthEast

site

more developed floor plan

In this design, I'm trying to balance small and simple with a richness of space that goes far beyond light and shadow, a good floor plan and simplicity of form and add my own interpretation of what it can mean to live in Vermont and lead a life integrated with the climate and culture of the place. I'm drawing heavily on history and my own sense of aesthetics as well as all my cumulative observations and experience.

Dang! Maybe I should tear down my own house and build something like this!

For those interested in the Slow Living Movement, Brattleboro has a Slow Living Summit coming up in June associated with the Strolling of the Heiffers parade and festival.

Raising a Timber Frame in Vermont

I helped out a bit with the design of a small timber frame home recently and I stopped by the job site when the cast and crew from Vermont Natural Homes were raising and assembling the frame with the help of a crane.

An Architect Designed House

At a recent open house I answered lots of questions, was generally sociable, I smiled, people liked my cookies and loved the house.  I was exhausted.  What really has been rolling around in my head over the past week and a half since the open house whas when somebody said this: "Now I understand what the difference between an architect designed house and a regular house is"

I have been thinking lately about what I do and what my strengths as an architect are.  And I realize that what I do and what I can do are not necessarily the same things.  What I do is useful to many people.  What I can do is only for a very select few and they don’t come along all that often.  Architecture is, or can be, art.  It’s that aspect of it that few people are aware of even though it seems so clear to me.  Architecture, even at the mundane level of the design of someone’s kitchen in a modest house can tickle and play with one’s emotions and spirit in surprising ways.  I seek out those little moments.  I slip them in when nobody is noticing.  A trick of the light here, a surprising and happy alignment there.  Few people care about such things or at least think they don’t.  Many people, many past clients, many builders have difficulty viewing architecture, at least residential architecture with a small “a” as anything other than a commodity or a problem to solve or a product to sell or purchase.  This is often brought home to me when I put such things in the design and they get X’d out because I failed to convey their importance.  Small but capital “A” stuff.  And often these things are not important. To most people.

General goings on, update and an Open House

Last winter it looked like I was in for an un-busy spring. That turned out not to be the case.  I'll turn this blog entry into a bit of a diary for the past 6 months or so. SEON - Sustainable Energy Outreach Network is a Brattleboro organization that I'm involved with.  You can read more about what they do here and I encourage anyone within a reasonable distance to check them out and become involved.  They are currently working on setting up a program to provide training in green building practices for people interested in a career in carpentry and building.  This spring my wife Rachelle became involved with SEON as part of her Capstone project at Marlboro Graduate School. - she has also been very busy with getting her  Masters degree.   As one of SEON's public programs, Chad Mathrani of Vermont Natural Homes and I put together a public presentation on high performance homes.  Chad and I held an open house at the Greenfield project for Greening Greenfield which was well attended and I will be doing another open house there on October 14th as part of a green homes tour put on by SEON. (come see!)/I dug into producing a set of plans based on the Greenfield house (see image above) to sell directly as stock plans. I hope to develop a new and improved business model with this. The purchase of the plans will include some consulting time via phone or email or in person if local. Additional time will be at an hourly rate. The plans currently include a sketchup model and a sales sheet if someone is interested in building this as a spec house. The sales sheet is already for sale elsewhere on this website. Future goals are to have an ala-cart menu of add-ons such as lighting design/consultation with a lighting professional, energy modeling for the specific location, standard additions such as an ell or a garage, perhaps a pre-configured and pre-priced product package with foursevenfive.com, Help with window ordering, etc. The basic plans have simplified high performance detailing on the level of “Pretty Good House” but are easily upgradable to Passive House Level. I am realizing that this is a major undertaking in terms of time and money so I have been a bit slow in pulling this off. I should re-purchase VermontSimpleHouse.com and set this business up independently of the Vermont Architect / Robert Swinburne / Bluetime Collaborative Website. Long term goals include a series of similar designs. I have spent years studying the stock plan market and I think this design and format will tap into an unaddressed market. I became distracted from this project when several interesting projects landed on my lap which I have been working intensely all spring and summer (no summer vacation for me)

Super insulated timber frame with Vermont Natural Homes:

A new High Performance Home for and with Dylan Kinsey of Kinsey Construction up in Northern Vermont (I hope to do more work up there in coming years)

A complete renovation of an old barn that was turned into a summer house at some point but is currently undergoing a complete gut remodel with Webster Construction and Helm Construction Solutions.

A complete renovation of a cottage on the Rock River with Mindel and Morse Builders

Entry detail

there are a couple cottages under construction as well

There are assorted smaller projects and consulting as well.  I only went swimming once this summer for about 10  minutes.

And I’m spending time upping my Vectorworks CAD skills Plus I’m Learning Revit.  I’m also learning video editing 

Outside of work, I have been doing assorted small projects on my home, getting back into trail running and cycling - I hope to ride and compete in "gravel grinder" events next year and, as usual, failing at gardening.  I'm also preparing to turn 50 in a week or so.

Also in the way of distractions I developed a nasty sinus infection earlier this summer and now I have Lyme Disease!  Yes I’m taking antibiotics. It’s been a bit of a rough summer health wise but at least I’m getting some bike riding and trail running in.

One last bit: Here is the flyer for the open house at which I will be holding forth at the Greenfield House on October 14th.

April 1 Snowstorm and Ents

Today I am at home with my son and dogs.  Yesterday and this morning, Mother Nature dumped a bunch of snow on us.  A most beautiful and useful snow. (we still have a lot of leftover snow) We went "Enting"  Plus we built a rather depressed looking snowman in the garden.  The soil of which we won't see for a while.    Enjoy.

High Performance Home summit in Brattleboro + HPH public forum

Attention local builders! March 24 in Brattleboro. A summit on high performance homes (HPH) register through the link below. The best builders and architects are designing and building homes very differently than even just a few years past due to easily accessible knowledge communities and improved materials and methods. They are building houses that use and consume fewer resources and are more durable and long lasting than most of what is still being built on a day to day basis.This is the world of High Performance Homes.

Additionally on the 27th Chad Mathrani of Vermont Natural Homes and architect Bob Swinburne will discuss the state of high performance home building in the region. Discussion will include defining high performance homes, financing possibilities and issues and the process of designing and building a high performance home. The program will be targeted toward people who are considering buying or building a home or thinking about a large scale renovation or addition.

The High Performance Home Summit is hosted by Vermont Energy Investment Corporation and the public form is hosted by SEON

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hph-summit-ii-south-registration-31425317972

The Engineering and Architecture program at my old high school

This past week I was invited back to my old high school in South Paris Maine to meet the students and be a judge for "Tech Night" in the Architecture and Engineering program.  Daelynn Elizabeth is a high school classmate of mine who also became an architect.  She has set up an amazing program to introduce the kids to architectural design.  She uses teaching models from the early years of architecture school to introduce her students to 2d and 3d design.  The students in the first class did two projects straight out of first year architecture school.  The Cube project which I'm sure you architect readers all know and the small urban park.  The students presented with models and a board with views and vignettes from a sketchup model.  The second class had more of a path and place project and I was pleased to see students starting to bring their own layers of meaning to the program (poetry!)

The students in the third class did a project of their own choosing. One student did a house buried in a mountainside designed to allow for the survival of a holocaust which brought up more questions than answers (which is good) The second student designed a training facility in Portland Maine for the US Marines delayed entry program.  This project was clean and trim and used a real site which has the potential of addressing the urban fabric.  The third student presented a research project and design based on how to create a hurricane resistant house.  She had a real location (In NJ in think) and had researched precedents.  She also presented her project extremely well which was part of the judging criteria. She is headed off to architecture school next year where she will kick ***.  In my opinion.

My critiquing skills were certainly a bit rusty but I managed and I hope I was constructive rather than mean. I got to hang out a bit with Dave Matero of David Matero Architecture who graduated from this high school as well but a year earlier then went to Roger Williams College and graduated 4 years ahead of me. (I got distracted) and Robert Sherman who does what Daelynn does at another school district.  I was very impressed by the professionalism of all the students and especially by the respect and affection they had for their teacher.

High Performance, Timber Frame House in Vermont

Last week I received these photos of a project I helped out with last year. When I say helped out it really means just that. As an architect, I do very little imposing on clients. I nudge, hint, suggest, recommend, advise but in the end it is their project and their money and people hire me for different reasons. Sometimes it doesn’t go as smoothly as this which ended up being a pretty sweet project and people make some really awful decisions. (you don’t see those projects in my portfolio but all architects have them) These clients live a few hours away in another part of Vermont. I visited them last spring and I’ll make sure to visit again.

Of all the projects I do, most projects involve some level of client involvement during construction – not just during the design phase. It may be as little as purchasing fixtures and lights and doing some painting but often I design for clients who will be doing the contracting and much of the building themselves. This is Vermont after all. It’s how we roll up here. In this case the young couple had family with timber framing experience, they had survived the house building process as kids and they were ripe for some professional assistance with floor plans, aesthetics and some good solid building science. The result is one of my favorite combinations – good building science, natural building and classical New England detailing and form. And enthusiasm.

Specifics:This is a timber frame cut from wood harvested on site. The frame is wrapped with a neat double stud detail that puts the intello air barrier in a nicely protected location. Braces are set so that sheetrock can slip nicely behind them saving much labor fussing. Much of the framing lumber also came from the site. Interior finishes are plaster which saved them money on taping and finishing the sheetrock as they were able to do it themselves. Future provisions were made for a mudroom and porches. This house may even end up being net zero. The overall footprint is 22’ x 34’ which seems to be a common size for my work in recent years. I can do a lot with that footprint. Enjoy.

This project represents a "limited services" project. My role is to assist where needed but I don't do full architectural services. My usual role involves lots of help with plans, advice with the building science and buildability aspects of things and helping the clients to keep things as simple as possible. I spend much time as a sounding board. Drawings are fairly minimal and often involves sketchup models and sketches in lieu of construction drawings. I do minimal structural and framing plans, no electrical plans, no interior elevations, minimal specs and schedules etc. We really focus on the core elements of the house. Costs for this level of service range between 2 and 5 % of construction cost if you want to look at it that way. I've done a lot of these projects over the years and I've been involved with some really great clients.

NESEA Pro tour - Hampshire College

Last month I toured the R.W. Kern center at Hampshire College with a bunch of Green building Geeks and fans as part of a NESEA pro tour. This building is being certified under the Living Building Challenge or LBC label. Pretty much the highest certification a building could achieve. Way beyond LEED. The architecture firm was Bruner Cott.

Side note: I met Simeon Bruner at Ashfield Stone without knowing who he was. (I don’t pay much attention to the goings on in my own industry) He told me his firm did Mass MOCA and I nearly fainted. Now Bruner/Cott is on my top list of firms that I follow and would like to work for. Except for the part where I rooted in Vermont and became a fuddy duddy.

The group also toured the Hitchcock Center architected by DesignLab architects and also built by Wright Builders. This building is also being built towards LBC certification. I can’t wait to see the finished product

NOVA NEXT ran an article about LBC and the Kern Center. The comments on the facebook are interesting and revealing. Education about green building is slower to trickle down than technology. We need gold standard buildings like this to learn from. Lessons learned go toward Hampshire college's goal of a net zero campus which then then are vetted and applied to the larger community. It also provides a learning tool for the current and next generation of thinkers who will apply those lessons elsewhere. Green building nowadays emphasizes durability and simplicity of systems in addition to energy use. This building will outlast most new buildings being constructed today and cost much less to own and operate. And attract the best and brightest students to the college. It's a win on so many fronts.

Here are a few photos I took during the tour plus a short video about the Hitchcock Environmental Center

A 30x40 Barn in Vermont

I have a lovely 30x40 barn that I built myself starting about a decade ago. This is one of those projects like architecture school that was a large undertaking of the sort that had I known....

We had just had a 1 1/2 acre field cleared as our property was all woods with the trees starting just a few feet from the house. The only way to see sky was too look up. straight up. It was very claustrophobic and we would walk over to the neighbor's field in the evening to see the sky and watch the sunset. The neighbor's father was a pilot many years ago and the field used to be used as an airstrip. So we needed a field of our own for garden, fruit trees and to play in.

Where we staked out our field was all forest leading up to a stone wall to the West, over which was a hay field. The trees that were cleared never left the property. We hired someone with a portable mill to slice them up into boards and leave them to dry. I still have a bunch of that wood and some recently made its way into the Greenfield house.

Much of the wood went to siding my barn. Some of the pine was made into very long 6x6 uprights which formed the pole grid for my barn. I used native green (not kiln dried) hemlock from a local mill for the rest of the framing, joists, rafters etc.

I did most of the site work, concrete (including a very scary one-piece retaining wall concrete pour complete with bulge) and initial framing of the upright 6x6 posts in 2006 and I managed to complete most of the frame and much of the siding the year after. I had some help with the first part of the roofing and the roof trim. Which was very very high off the ground. The end windows are old and very large sash that came out of the Cotton Mill in Brattleboro where I have an office. The side windows are old Andersons which came out of a building I helped deconstruct. The cupola and bike room utilize a greenhouse fabric that lets light in and has held up perfectly over the past nine years

What follows is a collection of newer pictures of the barn which turned out to be quite an amazing building. The acoustics of the loft are perfect and the lighting is divine. I am not finished yet - I still need a floor in most of the ground floor and I need to build barn doors.

In the summer of 2016 I built a new greenhouse and chicken coop between the barn and the house

The bike room in the barn - also a library - For bike geeks there is a 2013 Kona Jake the Snake, a 1981 Peugeot PXN10, a 2001 Klein Attitude race, a 1996 Marinoni with Dura Ace (17 lb build), a 1993 Cannondale M700, a 1987 Vitus 979 frameset, assorted wheels, panniers, kids bikes and old parts.

The Barn along with the Fern House made it into this book a few years ago We use the loft of the barn as a play space. It's also a good place to spread out some drawings to go over. We have a bed up there for guests and occasionally we will set up one or more tents for guests as well. I have some gym equipment in one corner and an old oak desk in another. The ground level has the bike room / library and a storage room which still needs a wall. I have much lumber stored in the main space plus my table saw and compound miter saw. two canoes, old tires.....

Vermont Stock plans now available for purchase

I am finally getting around to offering stock plans from my own website including Vermont Simple House (VSH) 1, 2 and 3. These have been for sale for a few years now on HousePlans.com and, by contract I can sell them on my own website for an increased price. I have been getting many inquiries about other plans I might have for sale so I’m going to focus for a while on increasing my offerings. My simple traditional aesthetic with clean modern lines and plans seem to have hit a chord with many people and I rarely get to keep things so simple with my custom work. I have been digging through stock plan offerings on the web since 2008 and I have found little competition for this sort of house. These plans all have shells and detailing bumped up to “Pretty Good House” levels which is also unusual in stock plans. These are the plans that are for sale currently:

I am now working on a variation of the Greenfield house which will have a footprint of 22’x 32’ + bump-out and offer two full bathrooms and up to three bedrooms in about 1452 square feet. I will strip out of few of the more custom elements from the Greenfield house such as the very large (and expensive) corner window and the steel staircase – it’s easy enough to add those back in.

 My plan is to continually add more plans here including variations on these plans (most of them are quite flexible) Credit card processing is taken care of through Gumroad and you are immediately able to download all associated files. Of course all work is copyrighted and good for the construction of one house, stair, whatever. I will need to figure out how to make discounts available for multiple purchases. I will also develop a resource page for materials, products and useful information. Feed back is most welcome and I hope that people send photos!

By the way, I am about to purge my user roles quite a bit. There are over 8000 registered users and when I ran this list through a spammer check, it showed me that half of this number are spammers. If you want to get regular updates please register via the slide out are on the upper right side of any page in case I accidentally purge you. One would dislike being purged.

Houzz - recent articles with my projects

My projects were featured on Houzz a few time recently - links here.

Arquitectura: Técnicas del pasado que nos hacen más sostenibles hoy

Oh, wie schön ist ein Gartenhaus: 9 Refugien im Grünen

Greenfield House Complete

Here are some decent shots of the Greenfield House project which is nearly complete and not a full-on Passive house but did meet the Mass Tier 3 rating requirements. There will be minor things to do over the next year. I will continue to photograph this house over time to improve my photography skills so stay tuned for more. This project was a collaboration with myself, Vermont Architect Robert Swinburne, sometimes known as Bluetime Collaborative and Vermont Natural Homes and Helm Construction Solutions working for VNH Details: The house has 16" thick walls with an empty service cavity so that's not all insulation, Klearwall windows + a Menk storefront window, custom fabricated steel stairs with live edge cherry treads, local maple floors, Vermont slate tile in the upstairs bath and mudroom, stone countertops from Ashfield stone - (the stone is quarried locally and represents the underlying bedrock in this region) - accurately detailed and proportioned roof trim (to make the house look super classy) a bold front porch made from Vermont white cedar, black three tab shingles ( I HATE architectural shingles). We achieved an airtightness level of .066 - Mike Duclos of DEAP Energy Group did the testing and Mass Tier III certification. Fresh air is supplied by two pair of Lunos through the wall air exchange units from 475 High Performance Building Supply The overall footprint is 700 s.f. with 600 s.f. per floor on the inside. Visitors report that it feels much larger.

The overall design is intended to be super classy and appeal to both traditionalists and modernists without being overtly stylistically categorizable. I wanted to show that a modern, superinsulated (almost Passive House certifiable) house doesn't have to look super modern or look like it was designed by an person who only cared about the numbers like so many super high performance houses do. I think we pulled that one off.

Greenfield project update

I have a lot of photos from the Greenfield project. I am spending a fair amount of time on site working out details with the builder. I strongly feel that this is the way it should be. Things never translate perfectly from paper to built form no matter how much detail and specificity I put into a set of construction documents and on this project, I am spending much time on site figuring things out and detailing to a higher level. I think Chad, the builder, appreciates this process and I'm finding that it hearkens back to my pre-architect design build days. I hope to do more projects with this level of involvement in the future. I really think that this is "the way to go" here are lots of photos. Note the local wood use: Cherry stair treads with "live" edge, local maple flooring downstairs and pine upstairs, Vermont slate, and a wall sheathed with weathered pine off my own land.

The new year's plan for Robert Swinburne (me)

THE NEXT YEAR AT BLUETIME – GENERAL THOUGHTS AND GOALS

1. Architecture

– My hope is to take on few but interesting and financially rewarding projects. a. I need to look at contracts and communications. Emphasis needs to be placed on clarifying the process and expectations at the beginning of any project. b. Break even is estimated at $xx/hour (2/3 billable) c. Keep better track of ALL hours including washing dishes and walking dogs d. Hardware and software upgrades and investments - need to spend some $ this year e. Build construction meetings and check-ins into contracts and specs f. Complete website – including print ready projects pages, press, Bluetime Collaborative g. SEO is fading – how can I improve?

I tend to get burned out on the intensity of working as a sole practitioner trying to be an expert in everything. (and keep track of everything) I am pushing the collaborative aspect of projects in order to do fewer projects at a higher level of service by both distributing the task load and adding in aspects of service that I have not in the past as well as get support in the organization of my services. This costs more in design fees so I expect to do fewer projects overall. I really need to avoid doing two high performance homes (for example) at the same time. I will continue to offer basic services with limited involvement as I have often done successfully in the past. There is a market and need for that plus I enjoy it. The resulting projects are not the best portfolio fodder and generally not brilliantly cohesive and resolved. Plus I think they are often actually more expensive than if I were more involved with design and detailing. But it is good clean work and I enjoy being helpful.

The following are other interests that I have been wanting to pursue but have been too swamped to think about. By incorporating these into my business plan, I hope to be able to do less and better architecture for a carefully selected clientele. And these additional projects will strengthen the core of my business, help even the flow of work and allow me to...be better at what I do.

2. Furniture– line of tables (2+ models?)version one is sitting in my kitchen right now. a. Build 2 models (requires $$) b. Photography c. Simple website w/ecommerce – Etsy? d. Cost analysis including shipping e. Who can provide metal and wood and what time frame? f. Is there a way to start low key? Etsy? My own blog? Can I get in with a local furniture store?

3. Photography – Invest in photography equipment and knowledge in order to be able to photograph my own projects and make extra income photographing other’s projects. a. Equipment costs - minimal at first b. Greenfield is a good place to practice c. Practice and education d. I already have decent photoshop skills - most of my portfolio is manipulated raw images through photoshop (And it's pretty good if I do say so myself) e. This sets me up for publishable work, boosting the architecture business. f. architecture specific photography for local builders, realtors. Not super-pro and not for pro-level fees but I see a need for this sort of thing in the area.

4. Stock Plan Market a. Need to add 5+/- additional stock plans to the stock plan portfolio on houseplans.com b. Initial time investment = residual income

5. Sketchup modeling a. Would other firms pay me to do sketchup modeling for them? (I'm pretty good) b. Need to spend time upping my skill level c. Additional plug ins such as rendering? Or should I ignore rendering for now?

The future of my career is nebulous. (thus, in part, the diversification listed above). I periodically consider going to work for someone else but suspect that wouldn’t last long. Or maybe it would be really refreshing? I am in danger of becoming a dinosaur with regards to what I see going on regionally as well as nationally. There will always be a need for the little guy who can address residential needs but new homes will be increasingly built by larger organizations. Pre-fab, factory built, modular etc are the future of residential and there may be a way for me to work within those parameters. At this point in my career I don’t expect to do any projects other than residential.

I also continue to design and redesign additions and renovations to my own home. I want a real kitchen (with a dishwasher) so I can log more hours there.



And I have to build a chicken coop and a greenhouse in the next few months.

Hemlock - Open Gap Rain Screen Siding

My use of eastern hemlock as a siding material has been generating interest. Hemlock is a common wood in Vermont but doesn’t get used a lot except in barns and outbuildings and sometimes for timber frames. My summer job during high school involved working in a small sawmill. We sometimes cut hemlock and I found the wood beautiful, but heavy. One summer, we cut some hemlock for a bridge. Fast forward um… lots of years and I ordered a bunch of hemlock for framing and decking when I built my barn. I learned a bit about how to work with hemlock, how it ages and weathers and I started thinking about how I could use it in my own work. I try to source materials as locally as possible and design within local builder's abilities and interests - which is easy to do here where builders get together monthly to discuss building science related issues

In rural New England, buildings are often sided with pine siding in a vertical shiplap form – and often unfinished. It tends to develop a black mold that is relatively harmless but can be ugly. I found that hemlock is more resistant to this mold. It’s also harder and more rot resistant. It is nowhere near as rot resistant as cedar, a more common siding material however.

White pine siding on my own barn

A brief on open rainscreen siding: Good architect and builders are installing siding with a vented airspace between the siding and weather resistant barrier (WRB). This allows any moisture that gets behind the siding to dry out before it does damage. Modern materials (a better WRB) and the venting detail allow us to use different materials and different details for the siding itself. I have commonly seen the open gapped rainscreen detail used with ipe boards but Ipe is a tropical hardwood related to mahogany. Cement based boards are also used commonly but cement has fairly high embodied energy. Both of these are not locally sourced materials. The gap in the siding also reveals a view of the WRB (depending on the size of the gap) This means that damaging UV rays are also reaching the WRB. And bugs. Thus the need for a better (and black) WRB. There are several on the market designed for this. Both projects shown here use Mento and tapes from Foursevenfive.com

It occurred to me that I could use narrow hemlock boards from local mills to create a very elegant (I hoped) rainscreen siding detail. It would use local and relatively inexpensive materials, it wouldn’t need paint or stain, installation could be simpler and faster if I got the details right, and if I installed it horizontally, the lowest courses could easily be replaced if the siding degraded due to splashback and snow banks. The damaged siding would not present a disposal concern – just toss it in the bushes and it becomes habitat for red backed salamanders. I was lucky to have a client with a taste for modernism allow me to try my ideas out on his home. The results were rather spectacular and gave me a sense of the potential. Now I am doing my second project with hemlock siding. The builders for this project (Webster Construction of Marlboro, Vermont) are quite familiar with good building science and modern products and methods. They saw the potential and were happy to give it a try plus they were able to improve my detailing in several ways which I can then incorporate into drawings and specifications for the next time around.

The hemlock turns silvery gray within a year. The narrow boards create a woven, fabric-like aesthetic.

The hemlock is installed "green" with deck screws. This siding is all 1x3 so gaps will be quite small as the wood dries. Fiberglass bugscreen is installed directly behind the siding. strapping can be regular 1x3 strapping although coravent makes an excellent product for this purpose and should at least be used on any strapping set horizontally such as over and under windows.

This is the corner trim detail the builder came up with and I really like. One side runs long and is cut after installation. The other side is held back for a crisp reveal - very architecty! Of note: the deck is white oak (local) and the post is European Larch which is from a harvest of a Vermont tree farm. European larch is used in Europe as a durable siding material that needs no treatment.

detailing around windows is super simple. On the first house I used metal panels (installed by the roofer) to accentuate the windows and wrap corners. Here it is about as simple as it gets.

A few of my minimal details:

High Performance Window Installation - Part 1

Today's post is about windows. Specifically installing high end windows. Most American architects and builders don't have to read this or worry about this. Nothing to see here... move along. For those of us working on a higher level, however, windows and window installation are hot topics. I have to tailor the construction documents according to the windows chosen. This is a fair amount of work I didn't have to do in the past. The actual installation is now on my plate as something I need to be on site for as the architect. I was on-site last week at the Greenfield project and took some photos. Chad (the builder - Vermont Natural Homes) and I had much fun working out the installation details for the Klearwall windows chosen for this project. Our goal is to simplify the installation details to the greatest extent possible, minimize the possibility of water infiltration and create a system that can easily be monitored over the years for durability. We use tapes and weather barriers from foursevenfive.com to accomplish this. Calk has no place on the exterior of a modern high performance home (that is SO nineties) Our trim detail (subject for a future blog post) is designed so that we could easily remove the casing around the exterior of the window to inspect the taped joints. We start with a fairly traditional clapboard at the window opening to provide a bit of pitch. ys

Then we use Extoseal to provide a sill pan. IF any of you have ever used Bituthene for the is purpose, I feel for you. I really do. But don't ever do it again. There is a better way.

Check how the Extoseal turns the corner. Note also the integrated exterior sill. Different manufacturers handle this in different ways. I think the Klearwall way is less elegant than some.

The next trick is to use Tescon Profil to tape over that annoying joint at the junction between the sill and the window frame. after several tries we came up with an excellent and easily teachable/repeatable solution. This all gets hidden with trim so we prioritize "good" over "neat"

The up and around part is relatively easy. We inset the window in the opening to make it so. This allows up to uncouple the head flashing from the window flashing in a simplified manner. The head flashing detail will be covered in a later blog post (along with the trim)

Then, happy with what we had figured out for the windows, we turned our attention to the door. And I wrote all over everything. Because I'm an architect.

Taking Stock of the Business

The current state of things. In rather wordy format. It was late.Sometimes it is good practice to write down a general summary of the state of my business to help myself put things into perspective. I have several projects under construction. The Greenfield MA house for my in-laws is being framed currently by Chad and company with Vermont Natural Homes and Mel of Baiser Construction Management. I have spent and have yet to spend an inordinate amount of time on this project. I am using lessons learned here to bring my services to a higher level than ever before but it is tough. Sometimes I wish I had stuck with the design-build route so I would have more control. This project didn’t have quite enough money in the budget to go the Passive house route although the insulation levels etc may actually end up performing at Passive house levels but without the added cost of certification. It’ll be close. I learned (deja-vu) that trusses (like SIPs) are not perfect. I’m second guessing myself about the TJI’s outside the structural shell to hold insulation. (would it have been cheaper to do double stud?) I may do some tiling there myself and I need to schedule a trip with Mom-in-Law to IKEA for the Kitchen cabinets. And the whole family is pre-priming the trim on the old logging landing at my house. The AH house is on a similar schedule for construction but with a higher level of finish work and a higher budget. This project got a bit crunched in terms of my work when it disappeared for a few months and then started back up after I had filled the gap. It has been a bit tough getting everything out to the builders and clients on a fast track schedule. Especially when I am only working part time. Which brings me to my own project. I live in a small house with a cat, three dogs, an 8 year old girl, a 3 year old boy and my lovely wife. We have one bathroom. Which was rapidly disintegrating into goopy piles of mold. I really needed to do something about it so this year, with a little ($) help from mom, I performed a gut remodel job. I had to rebuild the entire exterior wall down to the foundation and remove and rebuild the entire wall between the bedroom and the bathroom. I even ripped up half the subfloor. The only thing that stayed was the exhaust fan in the ceiling and the door. The plumber arrived yesterday and I took an extremely luxurious shower (and other things) last night. This project has taken a fair amount of time (I’ve been keeping track of this as I would a regular job) So I’m a bit under the gun with this personal job and the jobs I have under construction which isn’t that much work except that don’t forget, I’m only a part time architect. I have, for the most part, been successful at getting meals on the table, keeping the house clean, keeping up with the laundry etc. but I’ve had to pretty much give up cycling this summer as I have to try to make all my time every day productive. I’m also a bit behind on the winter’s wood supply and some other home maintenance jobs. This week I started back working on a long term project that will start construction next summer – the house for slow living. It is more expensive than the client’s original number and I have been pointing that out to the point of getting told to “shut it” because they like it so much. Which is fine but I have been a bit paranoid about digging into the CAD work in case it is all for naught. The biggest $$ savings would have come from putting the house on a floating slab ala Bygghouse and Chris Corson. (check out his system here). This is fairly standard in Sweden and Scandinavia as well as other cold parts of the world and the detailing is certainly well vetted and has stood the test of time but is a bit too “different” for the more conservative local contractors. So “no go” on that sales job. They want a full basement. Interestingly, some friends are doing a floating slab for a project in the neighboring town. More hip contractors I guess. I need to write a blog post comparing different types of foundations. I’m starting this project in full-on BIM mode. There will definitely be some unbillable hours there as I learn things. BIM or Building Information Modeling is using the full potential of my very expensive software to create a project in full 3-D as opposed to “drafting” The benefits are more accurate and more efficient construction documents as well as being able to perform more accurate lighting, shading, and energy modeling studies. This is standard practice for larger firms and the more geeky and technically oriented small firm practitioners (of which, I am not one of) But I’m always pushing myself on these things. I also didn’t get a rather large job that I was a bit nervous about as it would have taken a huge amount of time and the budget was fairly unrealistic as was the time frame. I didn’t get the job because my portfolio of commercial work is quite thin. I have been doing almost exclusively residential for the past decade. In retrospect, I should have sought out a partnership to do this job. There are several really excellent firms that have expressed interest in working with me and I would love to do that sometime but I’m sort of glad I didn’t get the job. It would have been too stressy and I probably would have lost money. Last week I met with a couple who want to renovate an old farmhouse/cape that hasn’t even been lived in for decades (no asbestos, no 70’s kitchen to tear out, no insulation) That sounds potentially very cool – I LOVE working on old New England houses. There are also a few smaller projects that may materialize plus I need to spend some time on my stock plan portfolio and finish building this website. I’ve been thinking about the future of my business as well. It seems that it will remain part time for the foreseeable future. My wife works ¾ time and is in grad school as well. Perhaps, in a few years she will get a regular job with a salary and a 401k and I’ll remain part time or perhaps I’ll be forced into more full time work and she will reduce her hours. It’s all too unknown to make plans so I’m just taking it one day and one job at a time with no plans for growing my business. I think that if I were to ever take on a partner, that person would have to be in a similar situation time-wise. Plus they should have an MBA and be really good at hanging out at brewpubs and schmoozing.

The light at the end of the tunnel is this: (The plumbers installed a new toilet in my bathroom yesterday)

The business card at the top is by EM Letterpress

Progress Photos

Here are some progress photos on a current project which should interest those interested in building science. The AH project is under construction fairly close to my own home so I can get over there frequently. This will be a fairly modern house with large windows, double stud cellulose filled walls, a high level of air sealing and an amazing three season porch using the Kent Webster's (the builder) most excellent system of removable panels. The most interesting thing in these photos for many readers will be the use of board sheathing. Local builders are returning to this method as it provides a vapor open layer in a location within the wall where a barrier to moisture (plywood, OSB) can cause problems in a heavily insulated wall. Plus it's local wood. plus it's more fun - carpenters don't get to cut many actual 1x boards anymore. The exterior will be sealed up with Mento to prevent air movement through the wall - an excellent combination with the board sheathing.

Permit Drawings for Greenfield

I've been a bit buried lately and haven't even visited my own blog! Here is a composite view of the permit drawings for the Greenfield project (wish us luck) I try to keep drawings fairly compact and easy to use (from my days as a carpenter/builder) There are a few additional drawings for stair details not shown here because they are more of the "shop drawing" nature. There will be additional drawings detailing window and door installation as those are very tied with high performance homebuilding nowadays. In the old days you just had to specify and locate. Now it's all about how they get installed which is very different depending on which manufacturer you use. Also some details are easier to do in sketchup then import .jpgs into my CAD program and label. I never know how much or little to include. This is also a rather simple house with highly detailed high performance features. We are going for Mass tier III certification (some weird hoops to jump through there) with DEAP Energy Group consulting. Passive house certification would have been more than 10k more and this was pretty tight budget. (my in-laws). We are going to use Klearwall windows and there is an incredibly awesome steel and wood staircase design which will gain me fame and notoriety.