Comments on: PREFAB FRIDAY: WIRED Living Home

By: Inhabitat » New Green Prefab from LivingHomes & KieranTimberlake!

Inhabitat » New Green Prefab from LivingHomes & KieranTimberlake! — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:53:33 +0000

[...] commissioning and building architecturally-stunning green prefabs. Until now, KieranTimberlake and Living Homes were connected only by their shared drives to bring the best green residential designs to market, [...]

By: ModernTulsa.net » Beautiful modern pre-fab

ModernTulsa.net » Beautiful modern pre-fab — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:46:41 +0000

[...] http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/07/06/prefab-friday-wired-living-home/ [...]

By: tim keepers

tim keepers — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:01:45 +0000

all of you bitch too much

By: Damien Somerset

Damien Somerset — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:26:19 +0000

Check out this video of the WIRED Living Home.

http://www.viropop.com/zaproot/episode/ZPRextras_20071203

Damien Somerset
Producer – ZapRoot

By: YogaDude

YogaDude — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:18:13 +0000

What I think is that yes those Beauties are expensive but if I can create the same look using containers and alternative building materials, I’m the winner. I use Google sketch up and try to create a similar design using Shipping Containers and am now looking for a architect to draw up the plans and a construction crew that can do a simple Shipping Container to Home project, Hell, half of it I can do myself. Foundation,simple plumbing, simple electricity and mostly use the sun for light and heating(exterior siding that slides away exposing the steel wall and viola! heat) Cooling with the use of cinder blocks mortared in choice areas for added stability as well and a simple green grass/dirt roof on two or three containers in what ever design I choose and can make it look like the expensive ones, and I can add more later on. In Houston they are $2000-$3000 each. Any interested parties can email me at dharmayoga@gmail.com.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:15:49 +0000

This house takes up over 90% of the land it is on. If that is green then there is a lot more green space we can destroy on this planet. I love Ray Kappe’s work. This house should have been a third to one half the size. The house is built in Crestwood Hills an architectural community designed by A. Quincy Jones and Whitney R. Smith. This house goes against many of it’s modernist principles. For more info on the Wired house go to the Crestwood Hills website/blog. http://www.crestwoodla.com

By: ted

ted — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:12:38 +0000

This house is in a canyon area, heating and cooling bills are not an issue. it’s built in a cool (temp wise, I mean) area in a temperate climate. there will be hardly any cooling needed and only some heat in the winter. not every place is Virginia, Tim.

As for size and cost, this is an expensive home in a wealthy neighborhood. that’s simply a fact, no two ways about it. however to criticize it solely on those merits is a mistake, I think. There are big homes, there are small homes, that isn’t going to change and never has. we have to start somewhere. this kind of thing, while clearly not going to change the world, gets attention, inspires people, and makes changes at the ‘elite’ level of society, which, like or not, is important when it comes to changing the world as a whole.

By: Mikeee

Mikeee — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:10:31 +0000

@ RKeyTec

Most of those five points you mention, while very valid, are pretty much what irks many millions of Dutch folks around here (moi included) who are becoming increasingly irritated by what’s termed “Op elkaars lip leven”, literally: living on [top of] each other’s lip.
Trust me: it isn’t that we dutchies one day woke up and collectively decided to squeeze our cities to extract the most living area out of all available real estate. It’s just that zoning and population density made this a necessity.

On average, a 3-storey, 1000 sq. ft. dwelling in an average neighborhood costs no less than €225k~€275k bought or up to €800/mo. depending on the city.
It’s just that the perceived lack of privacy and living space stresses people the same as caged bio-industry chicken and many thousands emigrate to e.g. Australia, Canada, USA and other parts of Europe exactly because of this.
Think of the difference between having “a lot of greenery” and “a lot of nature”.
When all the green around you is planned and planted, it’s still perceived as “built up space”. It wasn’t put there by mother nature.

So yeah, I’m NOT saying “you’re wrong”, nothing like that, but there are definitely LIMITS to how much you can squeeze a person’s real living space before he or she starts to perceive claustrophobia from all the other oh-so-green people and buildings in it’s field of view (whether eyes are open or just in the head).
Also remember that psychology also plays a role. Individualism* is the norm around these parts of europe hence old fashioned family-sized dwellings might seem wasteful. *=people refrain from marriage and having children by choice for a loong time.

Love the fact that our infrastructure is so bicycle-oriented tho…:-)
But yeah, we have the most expensive gasoline on earth too; €1,50/litre (or US$7.78/gal.) latest avg. price. Don’t exactly love that though :-/
Our gov’t considers filling up with own-source biodiesel or cooking oil *illegal* because it’s not taxed according to their specs. [which means buying it at a one of a handful of regular gas pumps and paying 20% MORE than the next expensive juice]

By: Green Home Debut Los Angeles : Do It Green : A home for exploring how to make our homes and neighborhoods more environmentally friendly

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:42:35 +0000

[...] to Inhabitant, the WIRED Living House is releasing its design in L.A. and expanding. The man who developed the [...]

By: RKeyTec

RKeyTec — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:58:11 +0000

Some of the features in this home are certainly green and sustainable, tha major problem with US housing, and LA as an example, is the massive waste of land that is the result of “single family homes.” The 4000 sq. ft. house is less of a problem than the suburban tract it is built on. Space and resources are wasted all around – paving, asphalt, water, energy, transportation. We could all live in a comfortable environment while reducing the use of limited resources (including land) if we could only build neighborhoods that are more sustainable:
1. Smaller lots: How much space do we realy need to sit on the deck, play on the lawn, have a BBQ, swim in the pool?
2. Zero lot line/semi-detached houses: Side yards are an enourmous waste of outdoor space, especially when they are seldom used. This, unfortunately, is ILEAGAL in many cities.
3. Narrower/deeper lots: We would like for every house to have access to the street and utilities, but how much access do you need to access your home – a driveway and a footpath? The narrower the lot, the more land is used for homes, yards and people, and less on streets and sidewalks.
4. Combined pedestrian/vehicular streets: This is common in Europe, where land in many cities and suburbs is at a premium. Neighborhoods are built with narrow, dead-end streets with no sidewalks. Again more land used by people and less by cars. This can be particularly advantagious in American neighborhoods where many residents have 4 car garages.
5. Walking distance: Finally, few changes in our lifestyle save the environment better than using our vehicles less. Higher housing density and shorter streets will make local grocery stores and small shopping centers more economically viable. If you look at most suburban areas, small shopping centers already exist, but are all concentrated along “the strip” (there’s at least one in every town). It’s just a matter of moving them closer to the residential population, again saving streets, parking, fuel.

By: citicritter

citicritter — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:28:35 +0000

The house’s degree of degree of green-ness aside, and Kappe’s well-deserved past reputation as a notable designer aside, why should Wired magazine’s house be carried out in such a straight-forward modernist mode?! It’s so ‘modern’ its practically conservative — where’s the edge?

By: MBRANE

MBRANE — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 01:24:44 +0000

But at some point buying green becomes contradictory. Company advertises green as a selling point. Whereas being truly green is to abstain as much as possible from buying. I haven’t done the math on this but I suspect it may be more economical for the environment if you keep driving your existing Hummer for another ten years (while being pummel by the likes of people like me) than to sell it and buy a brand new Prius–because of the sheer amount of material and energy cost of production. We are programmed systematically in our economy and our culture to destroy and replace–whether it’s a house, or our shaver. If it is very expensive to build (say, a house) in the first place, as it is in places like Europe or Hawaii, you would tend to be conservative in your use of resources (go small). And to encourage conservation of resources should be the mantra of sites like this one.

By: John S

John S — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:35:53 +0000

It’s been interesting to read all these comments (and there were quite a few). Many people point out to the apparent contradiction between ‘green’ and ‘4000 sf’. That was also my initial gut reaction. But I think that the point that the project tries to make is that large luxury projects similar to this can be made green and very desirable.

Large projects like this will continue to be built for those who can afford them (or don’t mind living way beyond their means), but if ‘green’ becomes desirable in their eyes, then everyone wins. It is extremely unlikely that someone in the market for a monster home would have a sudden change of heart and move into a minihome, but with great design and clever marketing, it might be possible to convince them that a greener house like this is a better option. Is it perfectly green? Definitely not, on a number of points, but probably nothing short of a mud hut qualifies as a perfectly green house (and then, only if the thatched roof is harvested in a sustainable way :-)

And the fact that this house costs something like $400/sf is not all bad. For one, if you want something that big, you should pay for all that consumption. Similar to my theory that SUVs have a right to exist, but they should be taxed brutally. For conspicuous consumers, higher cost is not a disincentive, but if you price something ‘evil’ high enough, need will eventually overcome want. This house is clearly not an attempt at affordable green housing, even though it borrows some techniques that are well-suited for affordable building, like prefab. Designing affordable green housing is a completely different, and I think much more difficult, undertaking that designing a house like this.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 04:48:18 +0000

A home with all that glass would never get a permit here in Virginia. You could never get it to meet the energy efficiency standards. Double paned, low E, argon filled glass has an R factor of about 3.5. To get an overall R factor of 20 you would have to build 24″+ thick walls and roof filled with R40 insulation. It may be green built but you’ll need a lot of green to own it. Heating and cooling it will cost a bundle. Those utility bills come every month year after year. This seems to be lost on many of the green architects out there who love their glass walls. To call a house that energy inefficient a green home is a joke.

Beautiful design though……..

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:34:21 +0000

As sustainable as a Range Rover. Beautiful, well designed home, but far from sustainable.