Archinect - A New Norris House: Phase IV

AIA COTE Top-10 Green Projects Award

2013-04-23T13:00:08-04:00

We are very excited to share that the New Norris House Project has been named by the AIA's Committee on the Environment (COTE) as one of the Top-10 Green projects of 2013! This award is one of the most prestigious in architecture in the US, and recognizes “exemplary and innovative built projects that establish a standard of excellence in sustainable design, demonstrate its benefits, and educate both the profession and the public.”

This is enormous honor would not be possible without the tireless efforts all those involved! Check out our revamped website for more information about the project: www.thenewnorrishouse.com

A variety of coverage around the COTE Top-10 Award:
http://www.architectmagazine.com/awards/projects-you-should-know--the-2013-aia-cote-top-ten-green-projects.aspx

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/04/10-greenest-buildings-2013/

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/awards/cote-top-ten-green-projects/2013-aia-cote-top-ten-green-projects.aspx

http://www.ecobuilding...

AIA COTE Top-10 Green Projects Award

2013-04-23T13:00:02-04:00

This is enormous honor would not be possible without the tireless efforts all those involved!

Check out the variety of coverage below:
http://www.architectmagazine.com/awards/projects-you-should-know--the-2013-aia-cote-top-ten-green-projects.aspx

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/04/10-greenest-buildings-2013/

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/awards/cote-top-ten-green-projects/2013-aia-cote-top-ten-green-projects.aspx

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/awards/2013-aia-cote-top-ten-green-project--new-norris-house.aspx

http://www.aiatopten.org/node/280...

Winter Passive Performance: The Experience

2013-03-18T11:12:00-04:00

As mentioned in the previous post, the project team performed an experiment to observe the NNH's ability to resist winter temperature fluctuations with all heating and cooling systems turned off. Samuel recorded the data, and I recorded the experience of three winter days and nights with the heat turned off!

We selected a 72 hour window with relatively low winter temperatures for the East Tennessee region. According to weather.com the high and low temperatures for Norris for February 19, 20, and 21 were:

                   High (°F) Low (°F)
02/19/13     53             37
02/20/13     44             25
02/21/13     52             28

I only allowed myself to check the high and low temperatures posted for these days, and I did not use a thermometer to check the actual temperature of the home's interior. Most of my experience was during the evening, night, and morning hours as I am at work during the day.

Day one: Tuesday, Feb. 19
On day one I was ready for the challenge...

Winter Passive Performance

2013-02-20T20:38:00-05:00

Earlier this week the project team began a seasonal experiment to test the passive performance of the envelope to resist exterior temperatures fluctuations over the course of 72 hours (3 days). To complete this study, the heating and cooling systems are completely disabled for the duration of the period (though the ERV remains in operation to supply code required minimum ventilation).

Earlier forms of this same test have shown interesting returns, generally showing the envelope is able to maintain a steady temperature range. Observations from June remained outside of the comfort zone entirely, however, though night temperatures clearly dropped into the comfort range. Effort by the resident to purge warm interior air in the evenings could have altered this, though high humidities in the Southeast-US often negates such efforts.

We'll keep you posted as to what we find this time around!

www.thenewnorrishouse.com

Hello snow!

2013-01-17T21:16:33-05:00

A winter storm swept across much of the southeast today leaving a blanket of snow on the New Norris House. Here are a few photos from this beautiful, snowy afternoon:

Presentation at TN ASLA Conference

2012-10-24T14:10:51-04:00

Last week, the New Norris House made an appearance at the TN Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Conference in Nashville, TN. The presentation was geared toward landscape architects, and focused on our landscape design and water harvesting and treatment systems.

We began with an overview of the original town plan, including the greenbelt that protects the community's watershed and the network of walking paths that link individual homes to the town center.

We then looked at the original Norris cottages and landscapes and discussed how we could re-interpret the efficient, technologically advanced homes and the productive, functional landscapes of the original Norris plan into 21st Century standards.

I showed the planting plan, and how we reflected the towns water-guarding greenbelt with our own site-scale native grass meadow, which is designed to capture and infiltrate storm water sheet flow.

We then looked at the locations and functions o...

DIY Network features the New Norris House!

2012-10-24T13:55:33-04:00

The New Norris House is featured on the DIY Network as part of a series on space-saving, sustainable design! Check it out!

Photo credit: Jason Kisner / diynetwork.com

Residency Year Two

2012-10-24T13:48:00-04:00

It's hard to believe but August 2012 marked our one year anniversary of occupancy at the New Norris House! The upcoming year of residency and evaluation has just begun, and I'm excited to serve as the 2012-2013 resident. My name is Valerie Friedmann, and I have been part of the New Norris House team since the spring of 2010. I am a graduate of the University of Tennessee Graduate Landscape Architecture Program, and I am now teaching design studio in the UTK MLA program. My role at the New Norris House has mainly been in the design and implementation of the home's landscape and integrated water harvesting/reuse systems. During the evaluation phase, my role is to oversee the monitoring and evaluation of the water systems, monitor and maintain the landscape, and of course, blog about it!

Hey, that's me collecting some water to take to the lab!

For my first post as the new resident, I wanted to write about what I'm enjoying most since moving in. To me, seeing the native grass an...

Reflections

2012-09-02T16:03:00-04:00

It’s hard to believe that our year of living in the New Norris House is over. During our time there, it was a bit like living in a lab; our energy and water usage were monitored, and we tested the design and systems installed in the house. Although we’ve moved out, there are several things we grew to appreciate while living there that will stay with us.

Natural light
We loved the natural light that filled the house during daylight hours. The roller shades over all the windows block direct sunlight and help keep the house cool, but don’t block the light entirely like blinds or curtains would. Even on cloudy days, the skylight in the living area let in enough light so we didn’t need to turn on the kitchen or loft lights until dusk. The skylight and kitchen window are two features in the house I miss the most.

the windows, skylight, french doors all let in plenty of light (source)

Design
Initially, we weren’t sure how scaling down to 768 square feet would work—would we be abl...

AIA Housing Knowledge Community Webinar

2012-08-28T20:27:09-04:00

Hello friends,

It is with pleasure and excitement that I invite anyone of interest to "attend" a webinar presented by the New Norris House team as part of the AIA Housing Knowledge Community.

Here is a link to the event, which will take place November 5th, 9-10am PT.

Registration is free and will earn you 1 HSW CEH.

We will be discussing a host of topics, but learning objectives will revolves primarily around the following issues (related to the completed New Norris House project):

-Better integrating water resource systems
-The limitations and benefits of off-site and on-site fabrication
-Community design process
-Indoor environmental air

If this is of interest to you, we hope you can listen in!

Thanks!

photo by Ken McCown

Visit our website at www.thenewnorrishouse.com

Greywater Monitoring Update

2012-07-19T14:48:00-04:00

As part of our water system evaluation, monitoring efforts have recently been expanded to include a greywater (water from the bathroom sink, shower, and clothes washer) component. Here we will not be monitoring quality (as we are with rainwater), but rather soil saturation of the greywater bed. To state regulators, this is a primary concern. Discharged greywater must stay below the surface level, and this is what we seek to gain further insight about.

The greywater beds function by layering gravel, mulch, and soil around a perforated 5-gallon reservoir (bucket). As greywater enters the bucket, it is allowed to slowly saturate the sourounding bed. We have designed the bed to hold over 150 gallons of greywater.Greywater bed (top, in green) accepts all greywater from the home. A section through the bed itself (below) provides details about how the bed is built up from the subsoil.

What we are interested to learn is how quickly the bed saturates and how quickly it will drain i...

Heat wave

2012-07-01T09:40:00-04:00

The past week in Norris has been sizzling hot, along with many areas of the country that have been experiencing excessive heat and drought-like conditions. We’ve had heat advisories almost every day for the past four days; temperatures have been in the low 100s, and humidity has hovered around 30% during the hottest time of the day. According to Norris Dam TVA rain gauge data, June has received only 1.9” of rain; typical rainfall is around 4” to 5” in June. (Click here for UT’s Climate Data resource page where you can explore links to weather information.)

hot temperatures and hot peppers from the garden

The heat and lack of rain have had an impact on some of the trees and shrubs that were planted last fall. The dogwood and witch hazel trees, along with the hydrangeas, are exhibiting signs of distress—signs that I didn’t pick up on, but can now see (thank you to Valerie for pointing them out). They’re getting extra water until temperatures reach normal levels again.

witch h...

Turkeys and deer and snakes—oh my!

2012-05-27T14:53:00-04:00

Not long after moving to Norris, we were driving around town and saw a rafter (or gang, if you prefer) of wild turkeys walking through a field. As a newcomer to the area, I did a double take—were we really seeing turkeys?? I’ve seen them again on several occasions and while it doesn’t come as much of a surprise anymore, it’s fun to spot them and their distinctive walk.

Norris is home to all kinds of wildlife; the city and the Norris Watershed area are considered a wildlife sanctuary (see map). An aerial view of the city shows how much green space there is throughout the town; this remnant of early city design provides space for animal habitats to coexist with the people who live here. We’ve noticed at the house that as the grasses are filling in and the garden is growing, there are more butterflies, dragonflies, and bees in the backyard.

many trees and green spaces in the city of Norris

In addition to the wild turkeys, we’ve seen deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, raccoons,...

How does your garden grow?

2012-05-14T12:00:00-04:00

The garden was planted a little over a month ago, and I’m amazed at how fast things have grown. Since this is the first garden I’ve ever had, I don’t have a point of reference for plant growth patterns; I suppose they’re growing at typical rates that just seem fast to me.

The arugula is ready for harvesting, so last week we had a peppery arugula salad with pear, prosciutto, goat cheese, olive oil, and honey. It was great to be able to pick a few dollars worth of produce that started out from a $2.00 seed packet.

The red cabbage and cauliflower leaves are as big as my hand; they’re in the front of the first box. Carrots and rainbow chard, also in the first box, will probably be ready in two to three weeks.

There are five tomato plants, and one has about six tomatoes growing on it. The others are starting to bud and should be bearing fruit soon. One of my favorite scents is a tomato plant (or a tomato fresh off the vine); I find myself lingering by the tomatoes when I...

Meadow Planting Day and landscape photos

2012-05-08T11:43:17-04:00

This weekend we planted the first half of our native grass meadow. The plan goes like this: 1) to suppress weeds, spread cardboard and staple to the ground with landscape staples 2) mark the plant locations on 2' centers 3) dig, dig, dig 4) plant, water and wait.

This is a slightly experimental meadow project. We are in a residential area, so the typical preparation of burning the plot of land to be planted with meadow grass seeds was out of the question. We will keep you posted on the (hopeful) success of this project!

Thank you so much to all the volunteers that came out to help this weekend! We planted over 400 plants and couldn't have done it with out you!

Water features

2012-04-19T15:52:00-04:00

One of the rooms in the house that hasn’t been mentioned often—yet gets daily use—is the bathroom. With the bathroom being the top water user in the house, the water features installed here are helping conserve water in several ways.

The New Norris House was built with a rainwater cistern and purification system which delivers harvested and treated rainwater to the toilet tank (and to the clothes washer and outside hose bibs as well). Systems like this aren’t common in the U.S., and the system here is being used under a special permit. According to the EPA, one toilet can use 27% of a household’s daily water, and older toilets use between 3.5 to 7 gallons of water per flush. It makes sense to use rainwater instead of fresh water for flushing given those numbers, since fresh water is a finite resource and harvested rainwater, a naturally replenished resource, works just as well.

rainwater cistern (gray container) and purification system (blue cylinders)

The toilet also has th...

A Tour for the Kids

2012-04-15T16:02:00-04:00

One of the goals of the New Norris House is to have a positive impact on the local community. We recently hosted a second grade class from Norris Elementary. The kids were really excited to see what they are learning in school being applied in the local neighborhood. After taking two groups through the home and landscape, our tour was unfortunately postponed due to weather.

We were very impressed with how much the kids already knew about living sustainably. They had some great questions and it was a pleasure to hear them share about what they were learning in school. The teachers at Norris Elementary must be doing a great job! Hopefully we can reschedule soon!

If you have a group that would like to tour the home and landscape contact us at newnorrishouse@tennessee.edu.

Very Local Produce

2012-04-01T23:40:00-04:00

Clearing the community path and separating seedlings

Nothing feels more like Spring than planting a garden, and at the New Norris House that's exactly what happened this weekend. Mary, Eric, and I spent some time doing general yard maintenance, and we also planted the raised vegetable beds. The beds were designed and built by students last summer, and we used stockpiled dirt from the house foundation excavation to fill the beds. We also added any vegetative waste produced from clearing the invasive plants, and let the soil sit all winter long. Now it is a beautiful, rich soil filled with worms and ready to produce!

We began by properly spacing all the plants before digging any holes

See the rich, dark soil under the hay?

We planted rainbow swiss chard, red cabbage, cauliflower, heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots, fennel, arugula, gourds, and cucumbers. We also planted zinnias for cut flowers and to attract pollinators. In a few months we should have a huge harve...

The Wall Assembly

2012-03-29T17:59:00-04:00

The New Norris House wall assembly utilizes advanced framing techniques and a rainscreen wall construction. Constructed of Atlantic White Cedar (AWC), the cladding of the house uses natural materials much like those found on the original Norris cottages of the 1930‘s. Atlantic White Cedar has a natural weather resistance and is a native material to this region.

In conventional wall design, a single barrier building skin acts as a “all-in-one” layer to keep out rain, retain conditioned air, and to resist the forces of wind & air pressure. The pressure differential created by a conventional wall design is a major cause of moisture infiltration. A rainscreen, or pressure equalized system, uses 3 layers, a vented exterior cladding, an air space and a moisture barrier. Initially, water is deflected from the wall construction by the cladding. All moisture remaining is drained vertically and/or evaporated by the movement of air within the air space.

Specifically in The New ...

We won a Residential Architect Design Award!

2012-03-21T13:38:00-04:00

It is our pleasure to announce that the New Norris House project has been selected for a Residential Architect Design Award!

We have been awarded a Merit Award in the Single Family Housing category. Of over 800 applicants, only 36 were chosen as winners. This is a tremendous honor which we are extremely thankful for. Many thanks especially to the town of Norris, our many project partners, and all those involved with the project.

Though the announcement has been officially made, it has not yet been posted to the RA website. Check back in the coming days/week, and look for the awards in the May/June issue of Residential Architect.

Photo by Ken McCown

Springtime in Norris

2012-03-21T11:15:19-04:00

One day after the first day of spring, flowering plants are already in bloom, grasses are growing, and insects are buzzing. It’s a beautiful time of year in this part of the country! The winter was the fourth warmest on record, and plants are coming out of dormancy sooner than usual. Most of the country had a mild winter and is seeing warm temperatures already (see this map showing historic heat in North America).

buds on the dogwood tree in the front yard

Temperatures in the past week have reached the high 70s and even into the 80s. The average temperature for March is in the low 50s, so the heat is rather early this year; 80 degree temps don’t usually hit until May.

buds on the plants on the side of the driveway

Along with the blooms and warmer air come allergies, the sound of lawn mowers, and longer daylight hours. The bees and wasps are out and often hit the windows as they fly around, looking for places to make nests. Crickets are already chirping at night.

wasp on...

Phase IV Landscape

2012-03-13T13:42:00-04:00

In East Tennessee, the last expected freeze date is April 15, but it already feels like spring! With the warmer weather approaching it's time to start making preparations for the installation of the Phase IV landscape - the native grass meadows. Be sure to look for an upcoming post outlining the process we will use to establish the meadow (item number 6 on the site design plan below). For now, let's take a look at where we've been and where we are going with the New Norris House Landscape.

BEFORE: Existing Conditions Plan

While the existing house sat on an original Norris Cottage foundation, several remodels and years of vacancy left the house in poor condition. Original to the 1930’s town plan, two drainage swales, one stonelined (01) and one vegetated (14), flank the site. Our goal of treating stormwater onsite involves capturing and infiltrating water before it enters the swales.

AFTER: Site Design Plan

The site design responds to the linear site with a series of ...

In the kitchen

2012-02-24T12:16:25-05:00

Out of all the rooms in the New Norris House, the kitchen gets the most use. The majority of our meals are eaten at home, so when it’s time for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack we head to the kitchen. Every day we use the cabinets, cooktop, counter, sink, and fridge—and have the added bonus of the view from the window on each visit. I love the design and layout of the kitchen, and know I’ll miss it when our time here is up.

fridge and freezer are on bottom right

The appliances in the kitchen as it was designed are an undercounter refrigerator and freezer, and a cooktop and oven. These serve basic food storage and preparation needs. Two appliances that are often considered essential in kitchens today are a dishwasher or microwave—we have neither, which means less energy use. But, there are times that the immediate conveniences offered by a dishwasher and microwave are missed. Washing dishes by hand and reheating leftovers on the cooktop both take more time and some planning....

New Photos Added

2012-02-23T17:12:00-05:00

Check out some of the new photos just uploaded onto http://thenewnorrishouse.com/photos.htm. New finished exterior, interior and site photos have been added as well as some photos of the events that have taken place on site.

As Spring is quickly approaching, we are beginning to set up more public tours of the house. If you are part of a group or organization that would like to tour the house, send us an e-mail at newnorrishouse@tennessee.edu for more information.

Find out more at http://thenewnorrishouse.com/

We need your help! ArchDaily Building of the Year Nomination

2012-02-21T12:08:29-05:00

Dear Archinect,

Today is the last day to nominate (preliminary voting) projects into ArchDaily's Building of the Year Awards. Please help us move into the top-5 in the Residential category!

There are 855 other houses up for the award, so we only have to out-nominate 850 to make the top-5. Easy, right?

You will need an archdaily account to vote, or you can use your facebook.

Here is the link to nominate! Any support would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

http://www.archdaily.com/building-of-the-year/2011/vote/building/166831

Photos by Ken McCown

Getting from Point A to Point B

2012-02-12T16:52:00-05:00

Although the town of Norris is pedestrian friendly, traveling outside town limits requires transportation by car. While living in downtown Knoxville, we didn’t rely too much on our cars. Ken could walk, bike, or ride the trolley to the university. Since I telecommute, the only driving I did was for a once a week trip to the grocery store, and errands or appointments that couldn’t be taken care of downtown. It was a nice change of pace not having to fill gas tanks weekly like we did in Phoenix; with the exception of some longer weekend trips, we weren’t using much gasoline to get around town.

gas prices on the rise (source)

Our transportation situation has changed now that we live in Norris. Ken has to drive to campus; the commute is about 23 miles one way and takes about 30-40 minutes depending on traffic. However, his time spent on the road is equivalent to the amount of time it took to walk or ride the trolley to campus from downtown Knoxville.

23 mile commute from NNH to ...

Analyzing Energy Use

2012-02-02T15:43:51-05:00

Here is a snapshot of the preliminary energy data received from our eMonitor system. The eMonitor is connected to each of the home's circuits and allows us to remotely see real-time energy use.

Before the home was constructed, the energy use calculations for the New Norris House (1008 sf) were projected at 40.13 kBTUs/sf/year OR 12.05 kWh/sf/year. Using our collected data, the actual total energy use is 23.8 kWH per day OR 8.62 kWh/sf/year (based on 6 months of data from Jul 01 2011 – Jan 26 2012) - significantly less than projected and 61.3% less than the typical US household.

Data from the New Norris House will be collected for an entire year. This data will be used to refine the prototype and disseminated for life-cycle assessment studies.

http://thenewnorrishouse.com/

Walkable Norris

2012-01-30T10:09:14-05:00

Pedestrian-friendly. Clustering of commercial areas. Front porches. Smaller yards. Urban-growth boundaries. Many who are in city planning today envision these characteristics as part of an ideal community. Back in 1933, those ideal characteristics were built into the town of Norris. Originally established as a place to house the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) workers who were building the Norris Dam, Norris today looks much the same as it did 75 years ago.

the path continues under the bridge

The TVA city designers borrowed ideas for the design of Norris from the English garden city movement of the 1890s. These plans included winding roads that followed the contours of the terrain, greenbelt design principles, a central business area, houses with doors that opened to a central area, and walking paths. (It was a given that the homes built in the town would be fully electric, powered by the new energy source created by the TVA.)

the path to the town center

The completely walkable ...

Electricity for all

2012-01-23T10:15:00-05:00

Last week, an afternoon thunderstorm knocked the power out at the house. I was working at the time, and I depend on an Internet connection in order to connect to a remote work computer. The outage was short—only an hour—but it’s obvious how electricity is a necessity nowadays, and how easy it is to take for granted something that we depend on daily. I did some reading on the history of electricity in our area and discovered that less than 100 years ago, east Tennessee had no electricity.

The lack of electricity changed with the advent of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which is the nation’s largest public power provider. It was created as part of the New Deal in 1933 under President Franklin Roosevelt; it was one of the programs designed to bring the country out of the Great Depression, and aimed to address environmental, economic, and technological issues.

11/21/1934, Jersey City Journal; cartoon of President Roosevelt (source)

In the early 1900s, the Tennessee Valley wa...

Rainwater System and LEED Certification

2012-01-09T12:53:51-05:00

Here is a link to an article published last month in PHC News. The article focuses on the rainwater harvesting system at the New Norris House. Credits have been earned in all LEED for Homes categories and we expect to earn 12 out of 15 credits in the Water Efficiency (WE) Category. 4 of these points come from WE 1.1 - Rainwater Harvesting System. Our rainwater harvesting system features technology from BRAE, a subsidiary of Watts Water Technologies.

The graph above charts the water collection potential of our cistern. The blue line represents the past 10 years average rainfall for each month. Currently, we are permitted to use the harvested rainwater for non-potable sources in the home. With two residents and high-efficiency water fixtures this leads to an average of 37.4 gallons of treated rainwater used per day. Over the next 12 months we will be analyzing the treated rainwater for contaminants. If the water is deemed safe for potable use, we may see as much as 90 gallons b...