Sustainable Design Update

Taleisin Pre-Fab

I have always had an appreciation for Frank Lloyd Wrights work.  At one point in my career I drew up renovation plans for two of his residential designs.  The owner balked at the project and finally sold the houses. 

The Taleisin school, FLLW’s Architecture school in the desert has a long history of designing buildings that look like bad knock offs of the master’s work.  This pre-fab however looks to be a well thought out departure from the look of FLLW, without departing from all of the concepts of organic design. 

True, the structure does look like it is floating rather than being anchored to its site, but somehow this works for me.  It may be that to drop a building into the desert it should contrast the environment.  Human habitation of the desert is difficult without some machines to temper the air and bring in water.

From Fast Company:

The nearly-complete prototype is sitting on the Taleisin, Arizona campus. It’s visually appealing right from the start, with its large colored paneling and asymmetric layout. The design contains eco-technology from the ground up, with wall panels that are both structural and insulating, photovoltaic panels that collect sunlight and provide power, and there’s a combination of passive environmental control–suntraps and natural ventilation, as well as active elements. The active elements include a grey-water recycling system and a water catchment system. Ultimately, the goal is to create a design that is entirely self-sustaining in terms of basic energy needs.

The most interesting thing about Mod.Fab is that it indicates how our homes should be constructed in the future: Its combination of eco-power sources and passive environmental controls mean that the house places a significantly lower burden on the environment. In Germany, so-called “passive” homes, that utilize similar design elements, are gaining ground thanks to increased taxation on heating oil and natural gas. The strict “passive” requirements, that include super-efficient insulation and exploitation of natural light and heat, result in homes that typically consume only around 10% of the energy of “normal” housing designs.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.