Architecture and Design (2010)

Anne is an energy efficiency specialist (and a designer and a physicist and a engineer) and I am an engineer (and a photographer and a writer). So, needless to say, we have some creative bones in our bodies. We tried our best to make sure everyone knew that we wanted collaboration throughout the design phase.

In the February and March timeframe we had a few visits with the architects and builders, including one on-site meeting. At this time we made the final decision to separate the modules, and shortly after I suggested a simplified connector that we came to loving call the “spine”.

The design at the top of this blog entry is credited to balance associates architects. If you’ve looked at Method’s website, you’ll note that we ventured pretty far away from the standard cabin 3. The front and back module, along with the roof, will be build in the factory, while the spine will be site-built. So, while we are doing some site building and we got to permitting later that expected 21-Jun-2010, we are still targeting a move in date of 15-Dec-2010. This is predicated on receiving the go-ahead from the county permitting folks by mid-August. Still, that’s impressive.

Water availability was also interesting for this project. When we purchased the property we were “promised” water rights – in writing. The quote from 2006 was that water would be available in three to six months. Funny part is that when we asked for a water availability certificate in 2010, we got the same answer. Luckily, I had made the executive decision to get a water catchment design from Ken Blair at Rain Bank. He’s the foremost authority on catchment on the San Juan Islands. He had the paper work ready in two weeks and it was approved in ONE DAY. That was money well spent.

I had modeled the worst 3 year period of rainfall over the past 125 years and determined that based on our water usage we would need 12,000 gallons of water storage to get us through the summer months of the worst drought years on record. All of our appliances will be super water and energy efficient, and we’ve incorporated other water saving ideas in the home: circulating water back the water heater until it gets hot, instead of letting it flow down the drain. The four three-thousand gallon tanks will fit under the forward module with very little excavation. The water from the roof will be filtered for large particulate before it goes in the eves. Then further filtering occurs before the tanks. Once, the water comes out of the tanks it goes through two more particulate filters and a UV filter. This will be far cleaner than any water from a utility.