the story of the smart home
Michelle Kaufmann from After Black Hammer on Vimeo.
My talented and dear friend Garret Curtis made this beautiful video of the story behind the Smart Home in Chicago. I love his eye and gift for story telling. Lord knows I am no easy subject to deal with.
More of Garret’s work is at After Black Hammer and [...]
drawing with shadows
Enjoying a sunny afternoon appreciating the shadows in our house. We experience the designs created by the absence of light as much as the forms that generate the shadows. As architects, when we design with shadows in mind, the structures themselves become the painters, the living artist with a constantly evolving canvas throughout the day [...]
ariaDenver
Super excited that the next phase of the ariaDenver project is (finally) happening! This includes 13 town homes along 52nd Avenue (that we designed and shown here) as well as two co-housing communities. On February 21st at 6:30pm you are invited to be part of the first session to explore the Living Options at [...]
fluid spaces
I am happy to share these photos of a recent project we designed in northern California. I designed the home with Studio 101 Designs and it was built using modular construction by Blazer Industries. The home was set during a 2-day period from 2 modules and then finished (or “buttoned up”) after that.
This [...]
buried treasure
This lovely underground home is slated to be the first zero-carbon home in the North West of England. Designed by Make Architects, this 4-bedroom oasis leaves the views of nature in tact above the ground while creating spaces filled with light and space below the ground plane. The project utilizes thermal mass benefits, will use [...]
welcome home
The “Greenest Home in Chicago” is back with new gadgets and inventive ways to live green! The Smart Home (which I designed) is a fully functioning, eco-friendly home at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, is a must-see exhibit for anyone who wants their home, and life, to be smarter, more efficient and [...]
Custom Modular Home – home as theatre
I recently had dinner with my friends Jodi and Ben in their absolutely stunning home. I designed their home with them and MKD and it was completed in the past year. While most of it was built in a factory as 5 modules plus 2 roof modules, it was custom designed specifically to their site, [...]
New Chapter: hitting the “refresh” button
I am pleased to have launched the new website last week, timed with the beginning of my new chapter.
This past year has been challenging, to say the least, for so many. Yet it has been a very interesting time with so much innovation happening. Many are rethinking their lives and their work, no longer accepting [...]
Custom home in snow country
Scott Landry recently went on a site visit to a newly completed custom home in California snow country (built with modular technology). While there, he shot these terrific candid photos of the house showing the stunning mixture of the Cor-ten weathering steel (love the low maintenance factor of Cor-ten, and how it quietly nestles into [...]
ariaDenver – next phase officially beginning
Last week was an exciting one. I was in Denver to see the final 8 modules get set for the first green/prefab multifamily project that I have worked on, and actually the first one that I am aware of that has been built. The project consisted of 16 modules, and the final 8 were set [...]
Smart Home – How green building can save the housing industry
I just read this great article by John Wasik (author of The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream and The Audacity of Help) on the ABC 7 website. John writes:
“Green is gold. Why didn’t homebuilders get this idea? They could be building new homes again, employing millions, making inner cities and suburbs habitable and [...]
Models built by ISU students
I remember back to my second year of architecture undergraduate program at Iowa State University and making my first physical model. The sense of creating a structure, and then evaluating that building and the landscape was so empowering and thrilling. I was hooked. In my following years at Iowa State and then in graduate school [...]
Saving money on Solar
It is with mixed feelings that Kevin and I open our Pacific Gas + Electric bill that includes data on how much energy our house created and house much energy we used for each month of the past year. PG+E calls this the “True-up” statement. While we are proud that our house (and its inhabitants) [...]
Eco-Home Competition Winners Announced
After hundreds of entries, thousands of online public votes, and much heated discussion among the jury, the winners of the Eco-Home competition by FreeGreen for the rebuilding of Greensburg have been announced. The first place winner is a design titled “Meadowlark House” by Steven Learner. This is one of the few designs that all the [...]
A very special group of monks
Seeing these photos of the modules successfully being shipped and set to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA couldn’t make me more happy (and also extremely thankful). The monks at the Hermitage are honestly some of the most special people I have ever met and the site of their monastery is nothing short [...]
