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 [...]
Custom Northern California Home
This home in Northern California was designed to collaborate with the surrounding landscape. Through
strategically placed glass windows and doors one feels like they are outdoors wherever they are, the spaces are washed with natural light, while breezes are used to help keep the house cool. Sustainable materials and systems are used throughout including FSC certified [...]
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 [...]
green materials + systems
With all projects we work on, we use sustainable principles when designing, including:
thoughtful design (designing to use less)
material efficiency (materials that are renewable and recyclable)
energy conservation (with the goal of achieving net-zero)
water efficiency (reducing water consumption and recycling water for irrigation)
healthy spaces (materials that are low and no-VOCs and incorporating air filtration systems).
systems built (utilizing [...]
power without wires
One of my favorite new items incorporated into this year’s Smart Home: Green + Wired at the Museum of Science and Industry is the use of eCoupled’s intelligent wireless power. Through the use of near-field inductive coupling with an advaced intelligent control system, the countertop provides power safely, efficiently, and without wires. This is [...]
smart home / garage mahal
When we think about designing for future flexibility, garages are a great place for innovation. Hopefully in the future we will not require parking for 2 cars, and then we can make the garage into usable living space. This is important to plan for right from the start. In the Smart Home we designed for [...]
treehugger interview: michelle kaufmann imagines a future of green building
My first post as a guest writer for one of my all-time favorite green websites Treehugger. They are interviewing a bunch of cool peeps for Earth Day.
Here you can read my thoughts:
TreeHugger: What are the major advances have you seen (in your field) during the past 40 years? What, if any, were the major failures?
Michelle [...]
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 [...]
green it yourself: recycling center
Only about half of all paper gets recycled here in the US and only a third of plastic bottles. That means a huge amount of usable resources are simply going to waste in our already overflowing landfills. So we have to step up our efforts! One solution is to make recycling easier on yourself with [...]
green it yourself: living wall garden
We’re not all lucky enough to have a big yard in which to grow a garden. Sometimes all you have to work with is a tiny apartment balcony or a teeny walled-in yard. If that sounds familiar, then a living wall garden could be just what you need. A living wall garden mounts vertically on [...]
