December 2012
1 post
November 2012
1 post
July 2012
1 post
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June 2012
1 post
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April 2012
4 posts
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February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
2 posts
Salvaged Pasta-Factory Floor
A couple of years ago we renovated an abandoned pasta factory in Oakland into affordable housing. This is part of a larger project for the Oakland Housing Authority called Tassafaronga Village - www.dbarchitect.com/Tassafaronga.
It had a beautiful wooden floor that had to be removed to install a shear diaphragm. The contractor removed the flooring and gave us some which we put into storage.
...
December 2011
3 posts
November 2011
2 posts
September 2011
4 posts
August 2011
11 posts
July 2011
1 post
Interactive Photosynth Panorama
The view of the Zero Cottage site as of July 24th, 2011. The foundation and underground utilities are in but we’ve been stalled for a month sourcing the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified framing material. Our goal is to use 100% salvage from the site, recycled, or FSC wood. This has been a challenge because of the lack of availability more than the cost. We’re hoping to...
March 2011
5 posts
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Construction Begins
The first day of construction was on March 1, and just in the last three days, Jon Blandin and his Falcon Five crew have managed to build a bridge and walkway to protect the breezeway, move the contents of the existing shop, and scrape up all of the gravel and stone throughout the breezeway. Things are looking quite good and orderly.
Jon came up with a fantastic idea to reuse some of the wood...
February 2011
4 posts
Heating Water Efficiently
There are a number of factors that we’ve taken into consideration to design our hot water system:
We want to heat the water with as little fossil fuel as possible. To us, heating the water efficiently means that the sun heats the water as much as possible. In San Francisco, this is easy since it’s sunny in the Mission District 300 days per year. Still, any solar hot water heater (SHW)...
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Lumber Considerations
We’ve recently been drawing away on framing plans, framing elevations, and cut lists to get the most efficient framing we can possibly get. We also get Leed for Homes Points MR1.2 and MR1.3 for generating this information. We use a program called Revit to generate 3D models that show us where every piece of lumber on the whole project is, and exactly how long that lumber needs to be.
We...
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January 2011
5 posts
6 tags
Design Decisions: PassivHaus Windows
Our firm is committed to achieving a number of major efficiency certifications, most difficult of which is the German standard called PassiveHaus. There are so many things you could say about PassivHaus, but essentially the idea is to use an extremely small amount of energy to heat your house through three measures: 1. super-insulation 2.eliminate air infiltration 3. heat the house with solar heat...
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Window Links: Sorpataler →
Here’s a German window company making some of the best windows on the planet. Expect long lead times, though. 4-5 months.
