Industrial grade: cross-section detail of the New American Barn's green roof garage. (MAC Architect)
FEBRUARY 2015 — The human urge to refashion our environments is truly astonishing, yet so intrinsic to our cultures and histories we tend to take it for granted — especially from within our modern virtual cocoons where there's an app for almost everything. Yet despite that, appreciation of good, forward-thinking housing design and intelligent construction is growing in the US and much of the world.
"Architects are leading a new revolution in sustainable design, driven by environmental, energy and social concerns. Realsmarthouse is part of this movement. We want to push it forward by enabling our contractors with tools they can use to grow their operations while they build smart housing."
How we go about designing and building things says a lot about our cultures and attitudes. One of the fundamental driving forces behind advances in design/build methods, whether it's pyramids or polymers, is the evolution of technology, or finding better ways to manipulate materials and assemble them in new and better forms. We call it progress, and what really blows my mind is the aggregative effect of these learned technologies. Think about it — how many engineering advances have been realized since the invention of the wheel? Quite a few! How many have been lost or forgotten over the millennia? None of the useful ones that we know of. Absolutely none. Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns defines this exponential change, but what does it mean for your house?
Along with tech processes accumulated over time came the practitioners who refined them. New and more efficient (profitable) methods of farming and fishing, making, building and moving stuff helped drive new economies, and as specific processes were proven they became part of the social fabric. As long as they proved their value, these materials and processes became "the way things are done around here." Practitioners of proven technologies that made money had little incentive to innovate, at least until competition came along. But competition tended to come from within the same talent pool or industry, and as aggregated technologies drove specialization, those industries became more focused on doing "one thing well."
This is in part why commercial building and residential building technologies grew in very different directions. Innovation in commercial building was and is driven by vast amounts of money, ego and business competition. Residential building was and is (mostly) driven by affordable mortgages, buyers' comfort zones, existing housing stock and a well-established set of trades. Subsequently, the aggregate of new technology in the commercial sector has grown exponentially since WWII, while that in the residential sector has for the most part remained quietly in tune with "the old ways" and engendered a mammoth home improvement and maintenance industry.
Today, growing awareness of energy conservation, sustainability and "smart" housing choices are galvanizing the residential design/build sector in many parts of the US and the world. New products and techniques are changing the way we think about home building, and materials and technologies once the province of commercial construction are being adapted to home use innovative and exciting ways. We are proud to be a part of this evolution!
Good reads: The Rise of the Hybrid Home | What's a Real Smart House? | Location: Daylight