Dreaming About a Green Home?

Objective For the remainder of the term we are going to explore the issue of sustainability. Your team of architects has been commissioned to build an eco- friendly house. Your house will be designed to stay cool during the summer. During the winter, your house will be designed to warm up during the day and retain its heat well during the night. Your house will be pleasant and attractive to live in. Project Overview Requirements: I. Design/Display: - Provide a 3D model of your home (to be placed in FRONT of display board-not to cover research) - All research presented on display board ( 7 sections- nicely labeled with information in correct area) II. Solar Home Research: Section 1: Introduction Explain what is a sustainable home? Explain the general overview of your specific sustainable home. Section 2: Overall design of your home House description/features (layout) House orientation (sun, shade, wind, seasonal changes) Sustainable interior design (floors, walls, carpets, appliances, furniture, lights) Natural pigments (mineral, organic) Ecological building materials (wood, stone, ceramic, brick, etc) LEED certification (Leadership in Energy & Enviornemental Design rating) Section 3: Energy Heathing (thermal & photovoltaic solar panels, passive heat, window types, geothermal energy, fireplace, insulation, wind block, wind turbine etc), What are some passive considerations for your home? Active considerations? Section 4: Air Quality Air quality (conditioning, fans, filter, humidity, etc) Section 5: Water Water (waste water management, water reclamation, rain, pond, plant transpiration, etc) Section 6: Landscape Natural landscaping (trees, hedges, grass, garden, green roof, hydroponics etc) Section 7: Biomimicry 3 designs/new products/innovations in your home Basic requirements: - Your house will be built on a one-acre plot and should house 5 people. - Each house must have a kitchen, a bathroom, 3 bedrooms and contain at least 1,500and no more than 3,000 square feet of living space. - The house must be off the grid. This means the house cannot be dependent on any municipal electrical, gas, water, or sewage treatment systems. - The property will contain a pesticide-free garden that will produce food on a year-round basis. - Maximum use of renewable building materials & minimum use of non-renewable, energy-intensive building materials - Catch the energy falling on the house & latch on to the Geothermal Reserve - Use the excess heat from cooking, washing, and human activity in winter, and design to get rid of it in summer - Design and build for long useful service life & affordable, sturdy, disaster resistant; bullet-proof - No life-threatening or building threatening dependencies on electricity - The house must be future-proof & low-maintenance - Comfortable and less costly than the conventional house to make a significant dent in the housing market - Biomimicry

Cost: Although economic affordability is clearly a sustainability issue, there is no price limit for construction of your house and you do not have to estimate the total cost. However, for your final presentation, you must calculate: - How many kilowatt hours of electricity you will need to maintain your home (on anannual basis); - How much it will cost to build the energy system to generate power (electricity) for your house Issues To Consider As You Design Your Sustainable House As you begin to develop a plan for your sustainable house, you may want to consider the following issues. Location - What is the climate where your house will be built? How will this affect design and construction? - How does daily and seasonal movement of the sun affect where and how your house should be built? Consider the topography of your plot and which direction your house will face. Energy - What energy source will your house use and why? - What energy conservation measures will your house use and why? - Is this source renewable or non-renewable? Water/wastewater - How will your house get its water? - How much water will you need for five people? - What will you do with your wastewater? Building materials - What materials will you use to build your house? - Are these materials available locally (in Tucson or Turrialba?) - Are these materials eco-friendly? Household systems - What are your lighting requirements? - What are your air conditioning and air circulation requirements? - Consider entrances, ventilation, mechanical systems, etc. Garden How big is your garden and how much water will it take? What plants will you have growing at what times of the year (a calendar)? How good is the local soil? Will it need improvement and, if so, how will you improve it? How will you protect your garden from pests?

Selecting Sustainable Building Materials

This is a planning document to help you evaluate the materials you plan to use to make sure they are truly sustainable. Efficiency/utility

Source and Availability y have to be transported to get to your location? vironmental cost of transporting it to your location? support the local economy or the small entrepreneurial businessperson versus the multi-national corporations? Production costs osts of producing this material (growing, harvesting, mining, manufacturing, etc.)? Costs of usage and disposal

Offsets offset the impacts of using these materials (modifying usage patterns, planting trees for carbon offsets, etc.)?

Eco-Friendly Home Rubric DESIGN 150 points 3D- Model REPORT 350 points On Poster Board - Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, 1 margins - Title each section, bold and underline - Explain what is a solar home? -What are the active & passive considerations for your home? -Explain the 1st & 2nd floor structure, roof-type/structure, solar greenhouse (plant beds/frame) - Explain conservation resources: renewable building material, insulation, windows, infiltration, appliances, solar space heating, solar water heating, solar electricity, etc. - Explain principles of: - Greenhouse effect in your home - Heat (gain/distribution/insulation/storage/transport - Plumbing - Hyrdoponics - 3 Biomimcry designs/innovations - Maximum use of renewable building materials - Minimum use of non-renewable, energy-intensive building materials - Catch the energy falling on the house & latch on to the Geothermal Reserve - Use the excess heat from cooking, washing, and human activity in winter, and design to get rid of it in summer - Design and build for long useful service life & affordable - The house must be sturdy, disaster resistant; bullet-proof. - No life-threatening or building threatening dependencies on electricity - The house must be future-proof, with access channels all around the structure to easily upgrade and add future technology, making it convenient to run new cables, pipes and wires - Capable of being "stand-alone" without connection to the gas mains, or electric utility grid (even if street power is used at first, all homes must be designed this way) - Buildings must be low-maintenance, and forgiving if repairs are put off - Environmental house must be more comfortable and less costly than the conventional house to make a significant dent in the housing market

GRAND TOTAL= 500 points