Each time that we choose an avenue for how concepts of sustainability can penetrate deeper into the masses of American citizens we must look at the reciprocal costs of reaching such a market and making a green switch. A post on GOOD Magazine’s blog highlights a new spin on the direction of architecture as a way to tap into the large market of single family homes. The angle of designers David Wax and Ben Uyeda is to produce “stock” house floor plans for green homes and give them away for free, calling it Free Green. At first glance this may seem like a great way to send green knowledge through the society, but what is the real cost to our culture and the architectural profession? In this instance I broadened the scope of reflection by asking some other designers to weigh in on Free Green.
In essence, Wax and Uyeda use an advertising model to create a revenue stream for their business by showcasing the products of paying manufacturers in their home schemes. The plans can then be given away for free to a waiting marketplace of contractors and prospective homeowners. According to the designers, it is opening up greener designs to a group of people that are buying stock plans anyway, thereby allowing more green homes to be built. A seemingly noble endeavor.
“I think that the most positive aspect of this model that they are proposing is with the selection of the green features,” said B. Specketer, an architect working in New York City.
They take the guesswork out of the selection for the average consumer. The big question revolves around whether or not FreeGreen can be a trusted clearing house. Only time will tell. It’s a step in the right direction pairing product placement with a previously under-served segment of the homebuilding market, but what this means for architecture and architects is a different discussion.
As designed homes, their aesthetic success is a question of subjective opinion, but it is fair to say they are better than the standard options of Toll Brothers and their peers. Though attempting to achieve the draw of the vernacular by the use of cliché details and stylistic tactics, they achieve a level of resolution that elevates a composition above the baseline that most would fine from a prefabricated design. More so in their “contemporary” designs, a consumer can tell an architect was behind the scenes to figure things out.
However, Intercon focuses on the reactions of events and their repercussions throughout society and this model has a few potentially dangerous side effects.
As one could imagine, the greenest modern buildings in the world are created by architects. At the same time, the profession battles against a lack of public understanding for what an architect really does and why one is necessary. This is especially apparent in residential construction where only 5% of all single family home projects include an architect. Free Green undermines in this tenuous relationship of architect and potential client by devaluing design work and supplementing the cost with ad-space revenue. If this was marketed as only another source for predrawn plans then we could simply lump them in with the other 30% of homes built in America from stock drawings, but it is claiming to occupy some of the forefront of an innovative field of ecological building. Architectural designer S. Doyle notes the inherent risk:
Although these are the types of buildings which typically would not have had an architect on board anyway it is something to be considered that there is a danger of sponsored architectural plans becoming a viable business model where architects are trading intellectual property for exposure.
Put another way, a pair of designers are devaluing their profession so that they can make a quicker, easier buck. Instead of addressing the problem, they wash their hands of it. Intel could get faster computers in more homes in America if they gave away the schematics for their processors, but what would be the cost of value to their industry? With over 22,000 downloaded plans already, some have clearly already smelled the blood in the water.
How green are these homes? A look through their website uncovered the suggested use of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), heating and cooling products, materials like bamboo flooring, LED lighting options and low-V.O.C. coatings. While these are all positive additions to any home, one conversation with a green builder or some dedicated internet research could likely unearth most of these tactics. Doyle points out that “We aren’t going to ‘solve’ climate change by doing what we do know in a better way.” It cannot be said enough that green buildings are not just storehouses of technological gadgets, but designed with a new approach to function and efficiency.
Stock housing plans are also at odds with the idea of achieving sustainability via architecture. Every site, every environment for a home should have a design tailored to make the most of each resource opportunity. By its very nature a green home designed for Worchester would not be the same as a green home designed for Houston. This business venture is potentially misleading consumers into thinking that site-specific design is not inherently linked to performance.
Perhaps the most disturbing eventuality is the false sense of security people can assume after downloading these plans and building these homes, as if they have fulfilled their generational duty to the green movement when they have really only scratched the surface of what green buildings can become. An interesting comparison would be the savings of building a new Free Green home vs. simply replacing windows, a furnace (or air condition given the climate), switching some appliances and using CFLs and not expending the energy and waste on a new house. I imagine the results would be close.
Intercon does champion the goal of educating more people about what can be done to reach a more sustainable society but not at the expense of anything and everything. Is having 200,000 more home customers come into contact with a green concept worth harming the profession that is responsible for the realization of our greenest buildings? I have to say no.
April 23, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Interesting comments but a bit too much of a “deer in the headlights” perspective. If we are all frozen from action because there are lingering questions then we will find ourselves in exactly the same place as yesterday. If we step off just one step away from where we were yesterday, we incrementally contribute to our ‘generational duty’ to a collective investment in the green-thinking knowledge base.
What Dave and Ben have done is not only courageous but informative. I talk to people every week that struggle with knowing what green is and means. The biggest problem that exists is that the average Joe believes that changing a window (or the equivalent) is makes the biggest difference. I’ll grant that it may be true if they live in a glass house, but if they live in a home that has windows that are, say 10% of the wall area then the focus is 90% off. Structural envelope performance is where all qualified SME’s state the largest gains to “greening” will be made. If a home owner can reduce their net energy consumption in half by addressing the structural envelope performance why wouldn’t they do it. For Dave and Ben to understand the importance of performance is to understand the where the biggest gap in understanding exists.
Would it surprise you if you were to discover that designers are now opting for 8 1/4″ SIP walls (R31.6) and12 1/4 roof assemblies (R48.3) for many of their designs? To these designers, it’s all about performance of the structural envelope. FreeGreen is making the green design possible for the masses; they fill the largest gap that exists and that is the availability of professionally designed, qualifying plans that aren’t elite-priced. That’s why we support them. If we don’t sell one SIP home package because of there program, our investment in improving the knowledge base is justifiable reason enough to be behind them.
I firmly believe that FreeGreen will be known as doing for green homes what Volkswagen did for personal conveyance in the 1940’s. I haven’t heard of any better options in fully informing the home builder, have you?
Greg Werner
Director of Development
[email protected]
April 23, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Greg,
Thanks for your comments. I’ll start off by saying that I am a supporter of your products so it does not surprise me at all that their use is on the rise. No one needs to convince me that SIPs are a great resource that can help revolutionize single family living. I was actually fortunate enough to work on a competition project entry for a green affordable housing model that was based entirely on SIPs. SIPs are certainly an element for how to rethink home design in a more sustainable way.
I am not sure that informing home builders is really the hurdle that we are trying to get over. The NAHB is reporting record increases in the number of homes builders seeking green education and experience as well as clients that are asking for it. It seems they are getting the message I think the biggest steps are teaching consumers why having a green home is important and then what the full range of possibilities for a building are to be fully sustainable and why those possibilities are worth the cost.
I do not draw issue with the materials choices that Free Green is suggesting, but rather merely question their method for distribution. Whether it is convenient or not, profitable or not, mass production of “green” plans has the possibility of jeopardizing the stability of the greater market. And I would guess that some of the greenest buildings you and your company have been a part of were working hand in hand with architects on custom designs. Are Free Green homes better than the building code status quo? I think they are, but are they rethinking systems, spacial organization, day lighting, filtered fresh air, etc, enough so that building a new home of theirs has a lower net carbon footprint than renovating an existing building? This is always the question we have to ask when we are surrounded by a mature built environment loaded with vacancies.
Would windows and spray insulation help negotiate a significant improvement in efficiency? Spray insulation purportedly fosters an R-7 per inch (granted you get thermally broken at studs if they are present.) Add that to upgraded systems and some windows and you could suddenly come close to a Free Green model without the creation of a new home (harvesting, manufacturing, shipping, construction.) We do not have the numbers, but I would think they are at least comparable. However I do think possibilities go further than that. For example I am surprised solar thermal is not on their site instead of PVs given their increased efficiency, lower cost, and ability to either heat a home or nearly negate the use of a hot water heater (considerable energy drains.)
Either way, I think that convincing people to spend more on a designed green home that will last them longer is a better solution that devaluing the design profession in order to spread the word. It may not be easier, but then again, our current dire need for sustainability is due to too many easy decisions in the past.
Best of luck.
April 24, 2009 at 5:43 pm
hey there, thanks and some great info
i was looking for it, also in my blog yoore i want to put some stuff on it
thanks anyway
May 3, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Hi, interesting post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for writing. I will certainly be coming back to your blog.
July 14, 2009 at 11:32 pm
What about selecting white/silver paint or other light colored paints on metal roofs, or light colored shingles for roofs? Back in my gentleman farmer days, we painted the barn roofs with silver paint to help reflect heat to avoid fires in the hay barn.
In fact, our house had a silver painted roof and the siding was white. We figured it helped keep our cooling bills lower along with another deep layer of insulation in the attics.