Friday, July 18, 2008

Home Delivery - Exhibit at the MOMA

The BrighBuilt team and the project itself is unique for many reasons - the collaboration of designers and technicians, the combination of off site fabrication and on site finishing, and the high standards for sustainability in a tough cold climate. But we are hardly the first group of idealists to come together to create a prototype for an ideal living unit and there is a great deal of interest in pre-fabricated housing in today's shelter mags and blogs.

An exhibit opening this weekend at the MOMA presents a history of pre-fabricated houses and includes five full scale model houses. It looks to me like the BrightBuilt Barn should be among them! Below are links to the exhibit itself and to a review in the NY Times.

http://www.momahomedelivery.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

56 Hours

One of the remarkable differences between conventional construction and the Barn's offsite construction method is the speed of the build.

On Monday morning, July 7, the barn was still just a hole in the ground, as it had been since the foundation was laid last November.

At 11:15 AM that day, the truck arrived with the first of the structural panels from Bensonwood. By 7:15 PM on Wednesday, July 9, we had a complete weathertight shell in place.

Floor, walls, roof, windows, doors - all assembled in just 56 hours from start to finish. (Actually, since no work was performed at night, it was only 32 working hours.)

Contrast that with the weeks it would take to attain the same result with conventional construction.

Check out the pictures below to see the process unfolding.

Having seen it in person, I'm now a believer - this needs to be the future of homebuilding.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

We Get Press

Today's edition of the Rockland Courier Gazette/Village Soup has a nice article on BrightBuilt Barn written by Dan Dunkle, the paper's business/enterprise reporter. Dan has long covered the environment/green technology beat, and his expertise shows.

The link to the article is here:

http://knox.villagesoup.com/Community/story.cfm?storyID=121489

Dan also includes lots of pictures showing the barn raising in progress - so enjoy.
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Great Press

We are so thrilled to have a great article in the local newspaper, Village Soup today. Here is a link: http://knox.villagesoup.com/Community/story.cfm?storyID=121489
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Friday, July 11, 2008

Barn Raising - Day 3

Day 3 of BrightBuilt Barn Raising in Rockland.




All photographs courtesy of Naomi C.O. Beal Photography.
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Barn Raising - Day 2

Day 2 of BrightBuilt Barn Raising in Rockland.




All photographs courtesy of Naomi C.O. Beal Photography
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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Barn Raising - Day 1

The barn and a team of 3 from Bensonwood arrived on site on Monday July 7. Working at a rigorous but deliberate pace, this team, with help from Alan Gibson and his crew, and the local boom truck operator, have been lifting the building components into place, fitting them together like pieces of a large puzzle.

Below is a slide show of images from Monday, Jul 7 - the first day the Bensonwood crew was on site.



All photographs courtesy of Naomi C.O. Beal Photography.
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Sunday, July 6, 2008

Two New Articles on Sustainability

Green technology is generating more media buzz by the day. Two recent articles have caught my attention, both because of their content, and because they are in mainstream publications aimed a general, albeit upscale, audience.

The first article is by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the slain political leader and a prominent eco-activist, writing in Vanity Fair. The link is here: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/rfk_manifesto200805

RFK Jr. argues for the federal government to underwrite a an alternative energy infrastructure, including building a nationwide High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power transmission network. Although HVDC may seem arcane, it actually addresses one of the major impediments to switching to alternative sources of energy, namely that the best places for capturing sun power or wind power tend to be remote from the population centers that use the energy. Alternating current (AC) power lines are cheaper to build and maintain, but over long distances lose much of the energy they transmit. Direct current (DC) power lines are more expensive, but lose much less energy over long distances. A HVDC network could bridge the gap between where sustainable energy is produced and where it is used.

RFK Jr. is putting an important idea out into the public discourse. Time will tell whether the idea gains traction. An alternative to HVDC, of course, is the local generation of energy near the point of use. Solar panels on each roof, wind generators in the back yard, etc. My guess is that we will see some of both strategies implemented over the next several years.

The second article that caught my eye this week was in the New Yorker (I'm addicted to the cartoons). Titled "The Island in the Wind", the article describes the Danish island of Samso, an island about the size of Nantucket with some 4300 inhabitants, who have become energy independent by switching to wind power. The link is here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_kolbert
Actually, Samso Island is a now a small but steady energy exporter, producing more electricity than they use, and selling it to the mainland.

The islanders apparently made the switch to wind power without government support or subsidy of any kind, as a sort of community project. The wind turbines were all erected with private funds raised by the islanders themselves. Each turbine is owned by one or a group of investors, who get annual dividends based on the economic performance of the turbine they own.

A fascinating story in its own right, the achievements of the Samso Islanders make you think, "If a small population of rural, mostly agricultural residents can successfully switch to sustainable energy, what's our excuse?"

The article is also full of revealing anecdotes about how this small real world community has evolved in its use of energy under a sustainable regime. For example: the Samso Islanders have little interest in energy conservation. The local eco-activist, an island native proud of his neighbor's achievement of energy independence, becomes indignant when discussing the results of his attempts to persuade the community to conserve energy. Families that insulated their homes better, for example, would then heat more rooms in the winter, so that the net savings were always close to zero. 

There is much more to glean from this article, and I will probably return to it for further insights in the future. I highly recommend that you take the time to read it.




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