GreenMobile: Eco Prefab

Image by Michael Berk (double click image for higher resolution)


In response to the Katrina toxic trailer debacle, the federal government appropriated $400 million for alternative temporary housing.

Mississippi's Katrina Cottage concept got the lion's share of the money, but a respectable thin sliver - almost $6 million - went to fund the production of a lesser known concept - Michael Berk's GreenMobile.

The GreenMobile, pronounced like the oil company, not the auto-, is a factory-produced, transportable, expandable, affordable green home that can serve as a "port after the storm" or as permanent domicile. This prototype ties into existing infrastructure or can be equipped to go it alone as self-sustaining living quarters.

Though Katrina Cottages are in abundance - the State of Mississippi is now selling off the excess units - I have to say I'm having some trouble finding a constructed GreenMobile anywhere in Mississippi. (Can somebody help me out here?)

I asked Michael Berk recently about the status of the funded GreenMobile and he said he didn't know. Seems that after consulting early on, he's out of the loop on any resulting construction. Sounding like someone talking about an estranged former lover, Berk commented about the design : "It's changed." I could hear him shaking his head over the phone.

Nevertheless, the final proposal for funding that I saw two years ago was far deeper shade of green than anything else out there. The wording in the appropriation announcement contained the disclaimer "up to" before funding amounts. It would be a shame if this progressive prototype died a premature death with money on the table.

Check out Professor/Architect Michael Berk's website for more images of the GreenMobile.

Solar Village in Freiburg

New “plus energy homes” in Freiburg, Germany’s Vauban district produce more energy than they use.

Since the 1970’s, the city of Freiburg has taken proactive steps to become an eco-friendly city with an ethic of conservation, environmentally-responsible master planning, and development of alternative energies – especially solar.

In 1992, the city council mandated that all new municipal buildings must be “low energy” buildings employing both passive and active solar components. Freiburg’s green ethic goes all the way to the top; the mayor is a member of Bundnis 90/Die Grunen, Germany’s green party.

The Solarsiedlung, or solar village, designed by Freiburg Architect Rolf Disch, is powered by a rooftop solar panel array. Each home is considered a mini power station. Electricity produced by each home feeds into the existing grid contributing a net surplus of power, thus producing revenue for the homeowner.

Hot water is used for heating as well as domestic purposes and comes from solar heated tubes on the roof of an adjacent business park designed by the same Architect.

In the winter months, an on-site heating plant fueled by wood chips supplements the solar hot water heating system.

Rainwater is gathered and utilized for toilets and irrigation. Catching storm water in an urban context helps relieve pressure on the city’s storm water drainage system.

And in any good green building, a whole array of passive measures have been employed such as sun orientation, sunscreens to shade in the summer and let winter sun in, and triple glazing to reduce heat loss.

Natural ventilation is also an integral feature of this new breed of homes – an eternal concept that works as well now as before the days of advanced mechanical systems.

For more on this development, including Sonnenschiff, the solar powered nearby business park and other green urban projects, see the Architect’s website. A link to projects:

http://www.rolfdisch.de/project.asp?sid=-1411551097

Frank Lloyd Wright's Organic Architecture

Meet America’s first green Architect – Frank Lloyd Wright. He called it “organic architecture.”

When I was in high school, I came across photos of Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building, and the Price Tower. The powerful resonance of those images changed my life.

I remember sitting and staring at those pictures for hours at a time. Intuitively, I knew there was something very magical there, something profound in Mr. Wright’s approach to architecture. Here before me was evidence that the built environment was so much more than floors, walls, and roof.

Fallingwater, nestled into the Pennsylvania countryside and perched on a rock over a waterfall, feels right at home in its dramatic natural environment. Man with nature, not man over nature, is the artistic expression - an extension of nature itself.

In the Johnson Wax Building, lily pad columns artfully structure the main work area manifesting an open environment of space and light. The tower, added later, provides a striking counterpoint to the streamlined linear massing of the original building. Its “tap-root” foundation draws directly from nature for its inspiration.

Especially mesmerizing for me was the plan of the Price Tower – a delightful play of geometries. In the tower floor plan, the square is juxtaposed with a 30-60-120 degree geometry creating an amazing kinetic feel. And in an epiphany for me at the time, I was fascinated with how Mr. Wright consciously augmented the geometry, both horizontally and vertically, when function changed. Each floor in the tower has three square sides of office space; the apartment on the fourth corner is skewed 30 degrees and becomes a two-story space with a bedroom mezzanine looking out over the living space below. The mezzanine takes back the geometry of the rest of the building in geometric sympathy. Beautiful!

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time at Taliesin, both in Wisconsin and Arizona as adjunct faculty and (as often as I can) a member of the Taliesin Chorus Mr. Wright started in 1932.

“What did Frank Lloyd Wright mean by organic architecture?” is a question I have posed to many senior apprentices who studied under the master before his death in 1959. Not surprisingly, I get a different answer every time I ask the question.

“The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole.”

“Each building must respond to Nature, and every building must have its own Nature.”
(Mr. Wright always put a capital N on Nature.)

“Emulate, never imitate.”

And the explanations go on and on like the beautiful poetic tapestry that is organic architecture. Like Nature, Mr. Wright breathed LIFE and SPIRIT into everything he touched. Isn’t that the essence of green architecture?


Today, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation carries on the legacy. Plan a tour of Taliesin East or Taliesin West, and donate to the organization by going to their website:

http://www.franklloydwright.org/

And check out what is going on at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture on their website:

http://www.taliesin.edu/

I will be spending a week, probably around his birthday (June 8th), on different aspects Frank Lloyd Wright’s work and his contribution to American architecture.

Sambo Mockbee's "Shelter for the Soul"

Sambo Mockbee showed the world what it really means to be an Architect with a capital A.

Emerging as a quirky, regional Architect in Mississippi in the 1970’s and 80’s, he shattered the myth that affordable housing should look and feel “cheap.” Always the artist, Mockbee took on each project with design ideals usually reserved for the richest of the rich.

Although he was not at all opposed to taking on large commissions, most of his work involved budgets every other architect called “not nearly enough.” He worked with a palate of inexpensive materials, many of which were recycled, and created a soulful expression that lifted the spirit and felt at home with the natural surroundings.

A beautiful chapel made of recycled car windshields.

A home covered with carpet scraps or rustic old barn tin.

A woven retaining wall constructed of used, discarded tires.

Mockbee was the master of breathing life into the ordinary, of making something out of what we consider to be nothing. He taught us that every building, regardless of budget, can and should have a “soul.”

Full disclosure: I’ve personally drawn great inspiration from Mockbee’s work. He was an occasional speaker and visiting professor at the Mississippi State University School of Architecture when I was a student there in the 1980’s. He argued for an artistic approach to architecture. He articulated his heart-felt belief that Architects should be socially responsible and proactive agents for positive change. I stopped in his office from time to time and witnessed his creative process first-hand; he greatly influenced the way I view the world.

In the last decade of Mockbee’s life (sadly, leukemia overtook him in late December of 2001), he devoted his time to teaching at Auburn University, his alma-mater. Along with D.K. Ruth, he founded the Rural Studio, where his vision of a decent architecture for all is studied and practiced.

In 2000, Mockbee was recognized for his life of service with the MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious Genius Award.

Check out the work of Sambo Mockbee and Rural Studio at:

http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/

Micheal Berk's GreenMobile

Professor Michael Berk has some innovative ideas.

His GreenMobile concept combines sustainability, energy efficiency, affordability, and mobility for a fresh take on green housing. In one clean stroke, this Architect shatters the myth that green costs more. With prices starting at about $50,000, this green home is affordable by most of the American population.

The GreenMobile draws on modular and manufactured home technologies in to create a handsome structure that can be easily transported and set up on-site in short order. Berk’s design is perfect for emergency housing, and even more perfect for the green-conscious, budget-savvy homeowner.

Designed with solar panels and a rainwater collection system, this new breed of home is no slave to the "grid." The GreenMobile can work independently of infrastructure, or as a hybrid-house attached to local utilities. Homebuyers need not depend on the availability of utilities to dictate their choice of home sites.

And keeping the footprint small (a two-bedroom model is 890 square feet, a one-bedroom is 560 square feet) keeps costs in check; the McMansion may have been the fad in the recent past, but modern-day economics is sending too-big houses the way of the dinosaur.

GreenMobile was awarded an almost $6 million grant recently from FEMA's Alternative Housing Pilot Program (part of Congress' post-Katrina relief funding) in an effort to develop a new generation of disaster-relief housing - a good use of taxpayer money, in my opinion. A prototype is currently under development to replace some of the FEMA trailers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Approximately 80 units are expected to be produced later on this year.

Check out the poster of the GreenMobile’s winning entry in last year’s Lifecycle Building Challenge:

http://www.lifecyclebuilding.org/files/poster-GreenMobile.pdf

And for more information on Professor Michael Berk and GreenMobile development, go to his web site:

http://www.caad.msstate.edu/mberk

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