greenGoat Deconstruction

There are two schools of thought for when to bring the builder into an architect designed residential construction project. The traditional way is to invite several selected builders to bid after the completion of Construction Documents. This approach ensures cost certainty for the project. At the recommendation of our architects, we went with an alternative approach and  invited selected builders to bid on the Schematic Design. This approach only generates a cost range but promotes an architect/builder team to develop a better quality product with greater efficiency by soliciting the builder’s experiential knowledge into the design process. Steven selected four highly recommended Southern Maine builders to bid on our project. After reviewing the bids, we visited builder portfolio homes to get a feel for fit and finish, and spoke with their references. It was hard to discern based on the build quality of the builder portfolio, or on their references as they were all excellent. Based on the enthusiasm for the project, cost range and proximity to our home, we decided to go with Spang Builders, who as it turns out, built our dock on Lily Pond over 25 years ago.

Once we decided to let our cottage go, we wanted to make sure that maximal amount of the materials got recycled for another useful life. In particular, we wanted the pine paneling, and maple floors to be recycled in addition to finding good homes for the old appliances. We first invited Habitat ReStore, which is a retail outlet that sells donated used building materials, appliances and furniture at reduced prices using the profits to support Habitat for Humanity home building projects. Since Habitat depends on volunteers, it was clear they could only recycle the appliances and paneling. We then invited Amy Bauman of greenGoat, which saves residential building materials typically destined for land fills and finds new projects that need those materials. I have been on the Board of greenGoat for the last 10 years, and consider Amy to be the most environmentally conscious person among my friends. Even her annual Board reports are printed on the back of architectural blueprints meticulously cut to letter paper size!

Ted removing floor

Master bedroom floor

Recycled flooring

Balsam Wool insulation

Living room

Open floor concept

Amy didn’t disappoint. She made an arrangement with Ted Whitesmith, who teaches English in Boston during the winter, to deconstruct our Maine cottage taking advantage of his summer vacation. As it turns out, Ted was building a cottage in Northern Maine. So he was able to repurpose any material not sold for his own cottage. We gave the keys to Ted after July 4h, and greenGoat was able to deconstruct by the end of July not only the maple floor boards and tongue and groove paneling but also interior floor joists, doors, windows, walls, ceilings, insulation, exterior walls, deck, shingles, slate patio and steps, and other items too many to list. Ted worked tirelessly to deconstruct as much of the cottage as possible while losing over 20 pounds during the process. Who knew we could have had an open floor plan with Cathedral ceilings in our old cottage:-) We only kept the granite fireplace mantle from the cottage thanks to an assist by Spang Builders. One of the most satisfying moment came when Amy shared the photo below showing our deck reborn in Northern Maine. The next step was the actual demolishing, which was a lot harder to take than we anticipated.

Cottage deck reborn

Schematic Design

South Elevation features large glass area for passive solar design

Architects use a four stage process consisting of Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents and Project Management. Schematic Design involves the development of visual conceptual design. Design Development refines the Schematic Design by specifying mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, and architectural details and materials. Construction Documents stage involves with the input of a structural engineer the generation of written and graphic instructions for the builder to build the house. Project Administration pages ensures that the architect’s design is interpreted by the builder as intended.

Theodores initially presented us two different schematic designs – one that involved moving our original square footprint towards East for a rectangular footprint with living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom in a row on the first floor, and the second one that shrunk the original footprint with living and, dining room in the front, and kitchen, and master bedroom in the back. While both designs had appealing features, we went with the second design because of its stronger connection to our old cottage footprint.

West Elevation – South and West elevation window overhangs let winter sun in and keep summer sun out

 

We loved several aspects of the design. The split-level design with two floors in the front, and three floors in the back with a basement fits perfectly into the topography of the ledge the house is built upon. In addition, the new design gives up the South West corner of the original footprint, connecting the outside living areas in front of the South and West elevations. While we had a barely usable basement before, Steven managed to include a study room, bathroom, and a utility room in the new basement by slightly raising the master bedroom. Three boxes with clean exteriors and flat roofs contribute to a stunning contemporary look. Expansive use of large sliding doors, corner windows and transoms  connects the inside and outdoor living areas. While the corner windows makes the corners disappear, transom windows act as natural landscape paintings that change with seasons. The interior open floor plan with suspended stairs visually connects the living areas. The design’s multi-level approach makes it a more livable place. For instance, the entry is a couple of steps lower than the main living area while the master bedroom, bathroom, and first floor hallway is a couple of steps are higher than the main living area, thus dividing the stairs into more easily climbable chunks.

East Elevation entrance integration with garage

One of our requirements for our Lily Pond House design was passive solar. Using passive solar design, the energy of the sun can provide a significant portion of a home’s heating needs even in Maine as Bill and Debbi Lord’s pioneering Maine Solar House has shown for the last 15 years.  One of the fortunate aspects of our location is that the southern exposure coincides with our ocean view as passive solar needs southern exposure for access to the sun between 9am to 3pm during the heating season. The new design’s South Elevation features large glass area for passive solar design. The floor of the living and dining area in the front is a concrete slab for thermal storage. South and West elevation window overhangs let winter sun in and keep summer sun out. North and East facing glass is minimized. During Design Development, some features of the schematic design got simplified but overall the design stayed intact. Onto Design Development.

 

 

Steven in situ with model

North Elevation has minimal glass for passive solar design

Selecting an Architect

Our cottage on Lily Pond has been our summer home for over 25 years. Margaret and I always wanted to build a contemporary house on this location blessed with spectacular views in a private setting. We also wanted our new home to be green – respecting its environment sort of off the grid without going overboard towards a German passive house.

Initially, we researched prebuilt contemporary high performance homes. Santa Monica based LivingHomes sets the state of the art on the West coast while Blu Homes does the same on the East coast. While these companies offer several customizable plans, it became clear to us that our home on a ledge from the ice age within the constraints of the shore land zoning made the prebuilt option not feasible.

LivingHomes RK2 Model

So we really needed an architect that can take advantage of the site’s southern exposure for passive solar but also can fit into the ledge dictated constraints while expanding allowed by the zoning laws. We knew that we would have no trouble finding green architects and builders after all Maine attracts environmentally conscious people. However, we were a bit apprehensive our unorthodox contemporary taste did not fit into the traditional Maine architecture.

We were pleasantly surprised that Maine is blessed with some outstanding  contemporary architects with green design portfolios that include Elliott + Elliott Architecture of Blue Hill, Theodore + Theodore Architects of Bath, Carol Wilson Architect of Falmouth, Van Dam Architecture and Design of Portland, Kaplan Thompson Architects of Portland, Briburn Studio of Portland, and Caleb Johnson Architects and Builders of Biddeford.

If you want to get a feel for the green contemporary architecture in Maine, check out the book Houses of Maine by Elliott + Elliott Architecture, Maine Modern: 50 Years of Contemporary Architecture in Maine exhibition, Green Architects’ Lounge edutainment podcast by Chris Briley of Briburn and Phil Kaplan of Kaplan Thompson.

Lily Pond House

Lily Pond

We started our architect selection process in the summer of 2013. We interviewed a number of the contemporary architects to understand their contemporary design philosophy, exterior and interior level of design services, experience with high performance building design, and coastal zoning, and their approach to collaboration with the builder. After visiting portfolio samples, and having them visit our home to get their initial impressions, we decided to go with Steven and Wiebke Theodore as Steven’s and  Wiebke’s taste, and their philosophy of design meshed with ours, and we felt at ease with their personality and collaborative style. It is just that once you see a home in an architect’s portfolio (Ledge House, Island House ) that you can imagine living in, you are less worried what the new design will look like. So the journey starts.

 

Going for Contemporary

This blog chronicles our journey in building a contemporary energy efficient home in Maine. We have been spending our summers in our cottage for the last 27 years. In 2014, my wife Margaret and I decided to take the plunge by selling our Massachusetts home, and settling in Maine to experience life as it should be for the whole year.

Over the years, while our tastes varied with the styles of the times, our preference for the modern minimalist design stayed constant. We still adore our Scandinavian furniture that we bought right after getting married, and fondly remember our stays in Copenhagen, Rome, Prague shopping for contemporary home furnishings, and living with the modern design in Istanbul.

Scandinavian Design dining room furniture – circa 1979

Deck View of our Conantum Home

We lived 20 years in this Carl Koch and Donald Gillespie designed contemporary in Conantum – a neighborhood of Concord, MA with about 100 contemporary homes nestled next to Sudbury River and Walden Pond. Conantum was the idea of MIT economics professor, Rupert McLaurin, who envisioned affordable cost housing for young couples. Carl Koch, an architect and also a MIT professor, planned the houses. Joseph Kelley, a local contractor, was the builder. Carl Koch spent some time after graduation in Sweden where  blended  clean Scandinavian design into his work . Our Conantum home is an example of Koch’s mid-century architecture design with multi levels and walls of glass that invite the outdoors in. For an excellent overview of Conantum homes, see Bill Janovitz’ tour of Conantum.

Conantum houses were designed when energy was too cheap to matter. Our house tripled its original size with architect Donald Gillespie before we bought it. We spent our 20 years upgrading the heating system into a distributed one, insulating just about the whole house, installing energy efficient doors and windows house while remodeling without destroying the character of the house. No matter what we did, it never could reach the ACH (Air Changes per Hour) specification of a Pretty Good House. So we wanted a high performance contemporary design for our next house. So in the summer of 2013, our journey started with looking for an architect who could turn our needs and wants into a buildable vision.