Posted on 12/31/2006 3:10:03 PM PST by Lorianne
Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver are creating strategies to encourage the development of modest, more affordable houses ___ In these three Pacific Northwest cities, the progressive power of urban planning is taken very seriously, and concepts like livability and sustainability dominate the local civic culture to such an extent that to visit all three in rapid succession, as I did in October, is to drop in on another country. It’s not the United States or Canada, but a more highly evolved combination of the two.
In each city I was impressed by major developments, dramatic projects that promised to refresh the urban landscape in conspicuous ways.
It was in Seattle, however, where I saw the best small house. Dave Sarti, who co-taught a design-build studio at the University of Washington last year, had constructed an 800-square-foot house with a 160-square-foot double-height attached workshop. It’s a sweet fire-engine-red box planted in the backyard of a Central District home. I walked down the grassy driveway past an unremarkable blue traditional home and was surprised to see this Bauhaus cube where another yard might have a swing set.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Yes, such a house does look a bit weird, but it does have these advantages:
1. The structure is EXTREMELY structurally sound, capable of withstanding even strong earthquakes and high winds.
2. Such a house uses a lot less land footprint than conventional houses.
3. The interior space is amazing considering how small the house looks from the outside.
4. Because of its design climate control is much easier, with vastly lower heating and cooling bills.
Lefse - yes, with lots of butter and sugar.
Lutefisk - no, not on your life. LOL
People also don't entertain like in the old days...they don't need or want formal living rooms and dining rooms for the most part. What they want are usable spaces, built-in storage, big kitchens, and cozy. It is very hard to find that in the homes in my area, unless you want to renovate something from the 30's or 40's.
Good luck to you and let me know how it works out.
A better plan here to save heating and cooling is the passive solar design with clerestory and overhang calculated for the latitude, so that the windows are shaded in the summer but let light in in the winter. With no windows (and all the closets) on the north side and mostly glass on the south side, the heating and cooling bills are quite low, plus you don't need to turn on an electric light until after sunset. The octagon tends to be dimly lit inside.
The other problem with the octagonal shape is the pie-shaped sections (or jigsaw puzzle rooms) you wind up with. There's an octagon house in my grandparents' home town, they put closets in the middle and they all go to a point!
Plus, it looks like it ought to have an 800000 candlepower lamp on top. ;-)
Planning Commission - 4 years.
Design Review Committee - 8 years
Civil Engineer Project Manager 30 years.
And I know the difference between facts and opinion.
But what do I know?
Nice new diploma and out to rule the world and impress the rubes?
Have a nice day.
That looks like a house SirKit might like to build when we move to the MS Gulf Coast. That style could be made to withstand hurricane force winds.
...and the location and cost would be?
That's right up there with "people are so dumb; they refuse to build all solar houses"
< /sarc >
I own a home not much bigger than that, but it's in a nice neighborhood in which many of the homes are much bigger and more expensive.
I think neighborhoods zoned for much smaller and less expensive is a great idea. I saw it in Germany when I was there, clusters of garage-sized homes, well kept with nice vegetable gardens.
The problem with cheap homes now, because society has become so coarse it seems they will attract slob people.
I grew up in the 60's and 70's in a modest neighborhood. However, these modest working class people had pride in their house and yard, kept it all up nicely, and didn't need a home owner's association breathing down their necks to force them to do it. They just did it.
Recently, any place I have lived that wasn't high priced or forced to behave by an HOA has been inhabited by its share of pigs and slobs. Pigs and slobs commit and attract crime, and ruin it for the decent people.
What matters is how much space and how uncluttered the mind is.
People can live very efficiently with very little space -- and things -- as long as they are of the highest usefulness and efficiency. That is the hallmark of intelligence.
It's the Internet model; whole worlds can exist on a single personal computer.
Seriously, people have lived out of tents, huts and studio apartments for years -- even lifetimes. Here in Hawaii, we chuckle when it seems like a family has set a new world's record for number of people living in a house -- or a studio apartment.
Space is not the absolute requirement many think it is; what is important is that one's own space is inviolable -- which is about the relationship one has to the other people sharing that community.
Do we all need fortresses and moats to feel secure? We just need people who can respect each other's space -- and lives.
And by that account, liberals are mind-space hogs because they insist on running everybody else's lives and telling them how they must live, and live up to their expectations of what they alone think is correct.
They think everybody ought to be as miserable, wretched and pretentious as they are. The great problems of contemporary society is the provincial liberalism of this age that regards a return to the fantasies of their youthful prime, was the pinnacle of human progress we all must return to.
That's what senility is. We noticed it when old people were fairly uncommon. Now, a few of them rant on as "experts" and nobody else in the mainstream media has the confidence to realize, that guy is stark raving mad and needs a huge mansion to get away from himself -- just like everybody else wants to.
Most of my baby boomer and Gen-X friends/aquaintences/etc... are all in huge houses, with huge payments, and have huge debt. I have no debt, a huge savings and retirement account, and will retire a decade (or more) before they will.
I know many Gen-Y folks and they are much more frugal. Most of them have grown up knowing that there will likely be no social security, and they have planned accordingly.
Another plus for the wife and I is that she is a 15 minute walk to work, and I drive about 5 miles. How great is that?!?!
But with the savings on property taxes and heating & cooling alone, it will pay for itself in just 215 years. And with medical advances increasing life spans every day....
All I need is about 200 in the first try to make it work. I live in a city of about 200,000. I think I can find 200 willing out of that. I'll let you know. Thanks, Jason.
Happy New Year!
This (neighborhood of smaller houses) has already become a trend in 'infill' areas here in California. The best example of such a neighborhood is the 'Ash Street Cottages' in Brea, CA - right next to the new 'Brea Downtown' entertainment area. The Ash Street Cottages are about 100 1,450 - 1,650 sq ft houses that now routinely sell for over $700,000. Only problem - you don't get more than a postage-stamp yard. See http://www.tndwest.com/birchstreet.html
>>We'd love one, too. But we're not about to pay the taxes on it.<<
Heh, Heh. That's why I rent. I'm 30 minutes from downtown Seattle on a 1/4 acre lot and 2,800 sq. ft. five bedroom.
$1,600 a month.
It is not a good time to buy when you can sock away a couple grand a month by renting.
Ahhhh...alas, we are no longer in Germany...we are living on the monster known as Ft Hood. :P But we lived in Wiesbaden. Wonderful city.
I am already retired 2+ years. It is amusing to watch Madison Avenue try to get me involved in refinancing the house, getting the right new car, pick out the right wide-screen display, buy a good investment property, and on and on as long as they think I have some unused debt potential. Every cabin, house (except one) on this road is a rental unit, and I watch the renters come and go and I wonder what alien intelligence has invaded their brains. The young ones party all the time and the older ones are staying off skid row somehow, driving cabs mostly. In the past 1/4 century perhaps two of them built their own houses somewhere in town and eventually moved and I suppose they are doing okay. The rest? Whatever generation--X, Y, gotta wonder.
We both work out of our home. One reason space is an issue.
Makes sense then.
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