It looks like a child’s drawing of a house, which is probably one of its great attractions. house has a square plan with a minimal form factor (surface-to-volume ratio), a simple gable roof, and four-square windows. The architects have noted that the GO Home “was conceived as a development model for zero-energy, single-family housing that can be delivered at a cost comparable to that of standard residential construction.” It became an instant Passivhaus poster child. Simplicity was a driving design principle behind the GO Home, which Matt O’Malia and Riley Pratt of OPAL Architecture introduced 15 years ago. Not surprisingly, most of his clients chose simple boxes, and the designers found ways to little surprises in the vernacular of the familiar.” Tedd Benson of Bensonwood and Unity Homes once shared an anecdote about how complexity adds cost and complication: “Years ago, I met a contractor in Montana who simplified his estimating by charging a set amount for each inside or outside corner. Adding gables and dormers and bump-outs and bays increases surface area and the potential for thermal bridges, as well as the number of materials needed and therefore upfront carbon emissions. Contemporary application of an old building typeĪ square building form maximizes floor area while minimizing perimeter wall surface area and materials, which in turn, reduces upfront carbon. Those corresponding costs include carbon emissions. Each move has a corresponding cost associated with it.” New details are required, more flashing, more materials, more complicated roofing. Every time a building has to turn a corner, costs are added. “‘Dumb boxes’ are the least expensive, the least carbon-intensive, the most resilient, and have some of the lowest operational costs compared to a more varied and intensive massing. Seattle architect Mike Eliason, who learned about this approach to design while working in Germany, used the term “dumb box” to describe simple buildings. Eliason writes about monetary costs, but every word applies to upfront carbon costs too: Back to purity, back to simplicity.”ĭesign innovator Steve Jobs adopted Rams’s philosophy, noting: “That’s been one of my mantras-focus and simplicity. Less, but better-because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Rams wrote in the late 1970s: “Good design is as little design as possible. The great German industrial designer Dieter Rams understood the need for simplicity when he was designing stereos for Braun in the 1960s. Simple Forms Are Key to High-Performance Homes This is why there is a growing consensus that an important way to reduce emissions is to use less stuff.Īs an environmental journalist, I tackle this notion of economizing around materials and products by addressing questions like: How much do we really need? How are our buildings constructed and deconstructed? How do we achieve more with less? Here, I will address the notion of keeping things simple to help minimize a project’s emissions profile from the start. While the former might seem like an obvious green building choice, turning trees into lumber comes with its own environmental penalties that include upfront carbon emissions. Integral to building-related efforts is something I term materiality, which is a topic for another day but, in general, concerns materials selection. There are myriad ways to reduce upfront carbon emissions. Embodied carbon happens before a building is even constructed, so I and many others refer to it as “upfront carbon emissions.” As our buildings become more energy efficient, the portion of emissions that comes from embodied carbon becomes a more glaring piece of the greenhouse gas emissions pie. These emissions differ from those generated during the building’s operations i.e., operational emissions. The embodied carbon associated with a building refers to the greenhouse gases emitted during the manufacturing of products and materials used to construct it.
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