Design III - Inspiration

Originally, I had planned to start into the technical details of the house design in this post.  Things like control layers, orientation, and heat loss.  However, it occurred to me that any design needs a starting point, an inspiration.

If you ask a novelist where they get their inspiration for a book, I expect the answer would vary with each individual author.  The same is probably true with people who design homes.

For me, in the beginning at least, I had some starting points.  A few images, some houses seen from the road, and some mental expectations of what might suit us.  From there, it has been, and continues to be, an incremental process of learning what questions to ask.


There were starting points

We have our own personal style, design sense, whatever you want to call it.  I would loosely term it as "modern rustic", with a healthy dose of "whatever we can afford".

What it means to us will become evident later when we have interior finish photos, or exterior elevations to show.  I also feel that some of the 'look' of a home will be, and should be, influenced by it's surroundings.  But I digress.  We had some photos and ideas found online...

Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.  Mitchell Kapor.

I have found this to be especially true when it comes to visual, or aesthetic elements, but also for the technical aspects that go along with a super insulated, high performance home's design.  Below, in no particular order, are some of the initial references, or inspirations.

GreenBuildingAdvisor.com

I really cannot remember what I was looking for when I came across this site, but I am glad I did.  It has been a wealth of information.

Topics are presented in blogs, and then discussed, often in great detail.  The Q&A forum is frequented by both amateurs and professionals, and in addition to providing answers, I find it often acts almost as a springboard to related content.  There is more, of course, but suffice to say it is a valuable resource for those interested in building a home.  

There is no one particular post, image or detail that I can reference as an inspiration, but Martin Holladay's How to do everything list is one I still have bookmarked.

Our house upon Moose Hill

This is one of the sites I "springboarded" to quickly after finding GBA.  It is a blog by Mr. Lucas Durand, who happens to live in the same area of Canada as I do, Ontario (though his climate zone is colder than ours).

Here you can get a sense of his foundation design.  A tidy worksite is a happy worksite.

I found the site easy to follow, detailed and inspiring.  When I first started reading about his home, which is still in progress as of this posting, I knew very little about high performance homes, but I knew enough to recognize the robust and buildable design Lucas was constructing.

In addition to many photos, and careful explanations of the topic at hand, he includes many Sketchup screen captures which I found really helpful.  Infact, it was his blog that introduced me to Sketchup.  Thanks Lucas.

Starting my own blog, in a similar vein, I also now realize it is, in itself, no idle undertaking.

BrightBuilt Barn

For some reason, certain images stick with you.  This photo is one of them.

Perhaps it is the trellis type window shading, or the strong, clean lines that make up the window jambs/sills. The contrast between the rural setting and the modern design elements is also appealing.

I cannot say with great confidence that our final home design will resemble this in any meaningful way, but never the less, I consider this to be one of my inspirations.  Since first finding this, I have seen several other designs by the Kaplan Thompson, but this is my favourite.

SunRise Home 

I first read about this project on GBA, and subsequently other locations, and immediately found it appealing on many levels.  The wall assembly, dubbed the Arctic Wall, is one that has many advantages, and few drawbacks.  

The southern face of the SunRise home.

This home is built in an extreme climate (Alaska), which is nearly double the HDD of Peterborough.  You can read more about the wall, and the frost protected slab on grade foundation here in a CCHRC case study. 

In addition to finding the house design inspiring, I also unexpectedly found inspiration in the builder himself, Mr. Thorsten Chlupp.  His passion for building science, his expertise and a healthy dose of humility, are all evident when watching the informative presentations he has done.

While I do not have the budget, or inclination, to replicate everything Mr. Chlupp has incorporated into this build, my current envelope design resembles a climate appropriate take-off of the Arctic wall.


There are many, many other photos, ideas and details that I have found useful, both for learning purposes and just because I like them.  I will save them for another time, however.



Knowing what questions to ask

As I hinted at earlier, part of the process of being inspired by various examples is learning.  Albert Einstein has a lot of memorable quotes.  One of my favourite is, "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know."

This has been my experience thus far, learning about a complex, technical topic, and then realizing the only thing I really know is that there is more to learn.  Sites like GBA not only provide answers, they provide questions.  Or rather, they inspire us to ask those questions.

The more I learn about high performance homes, and the building science that goes into them, the more I realize that I know very little.  Learning about one topic, say ventilation, often requires a good understanding of other topics, like moisture.  Whether I know enough to get it right as they say, remains to be seen.  But I do feel confident.