Sustainable Landscape Architecture For The Land Surrounding The Prefab House

Ohhhhhhhh this off grid zero energy prefab house is never going to be done.
Ohhhhhhhh I'm exhausted (but excited).

Ohhhhhhhh. Wait a second: Once the prefab house kit is done, there's more to do:
The Land.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Well, thanks to the sustainable landscape architect Heather Barber of Topos LLC, our sustainable land management plan has been expanded beyond crop tree release and bush hogging.

And if you thought it took long to build the prefab house, wait until we journey years to gently shape the land to function more sustainably.

Great. I just set myself up with decades of more work. ; ) And we have no money.
But the landscape architecture plan by Topos is delicious.

And I mean that literally: There's blueberries and a root cellar in them thar plans!

So, c'mon, what are you waiting for? Let's check it out!

From Heather, the landscape architect of Topos LLC:

"casa-ti is a remarkable example of how far prefab residential architecture has come. this greenmodernkits kit home is located on 55 acres in a heritage area in the western portion of virginia. the most exciting yet challenging thing about the casa ti project is that it contradicts any idea that the landscape is a stayed design, or an anchor for the architecture. we are taking a very historical site contextually speaking and turning it on its ear...creating a post modern design that connects the home with it’s expansive environs. i think the opportunity to design a functionally sustainable, yet whimsical site plan for casa ti is a true honor and an evolutionary process. we are talking about the first kit / prefab modern home that is completely ‘off-grid’ / fully sustainable in the state of virginia.* this shows that the greenmodernkit home can translate anywhere, in any capacity. it is my job and again, opportunity, to create that threshold between the prefab sustainable home and the environs in which the owners choose to site it. this is a luxury for me. i can take a very simple form of architecture, which has it’s own inherent beauty in that it’s simple, and connect it to it’s site through the landscape architecture. whether it is urban, sub-urban, or farmland, the modern pre-fabricated homes that are greenmodernkit homes do, in fact speak the language of their location. and it’s a language that is very sensitive to the people living in it as well as the environment."

[ *Heather said we're the first off grid prefab in Virginia, I haven't heard of any others, but I don't know for sure if that's true... will research, but no, I haven't heard of any other modern prefabs that are off grid here... ]

Wow, Heather, I'm honored by your words! When Topos originally inquired into what our landscape architecture would be, I laughed and replied, "Um... a bush hogg, Handsome Husband and a shovel?"

I thank Topos immeasurably for giving OUR FAMILY the opportunity, through their experience, to turn an abandoned, briar-filled plot into, one day, a sustainable farm.

So... let's go through it:

• Starting with field #1, Topos created a figure 8 access road which allows us to easily navigate the drive, house, and shed while maintaining the field. This eight acre field was previously farmed. By bush hogging it regularly we have been reducing the briars which had cropped up before we bought it, and will start planting cover crops to enrich the soil this fall. Wildlife such as quail will be encouraged through allowing patches to not be mowed but to create the habitat quail, turkey, and rabbits enjoy.
• I also envision field #1 being used to grow potatoes and garlic...
  
• Field #2 is downhill from the house kit. Rainwater will easily help irrigate it.

The area around the prefab house is geared for high traffic and fun...
more on that in a minute!

• Back to Field #2: Being downhill, rainwater will naturally run towards this plot, and if you can look closely Topos has created furrows and a collection area for water- which is the way they used to irrigate fields in times past.
• Not only will we be using that existing field for crops but it will also harbor fruit and nut trees, and a berry hedge.
  
• This area is surrounded by woods that had been cut-over twenty-ish years ago. Lots of pine, cedar, but a surprising amount of diversity in the trees- poplar, birch, hickory, walnut...
  

Ok, let's get to the prefab house kit area:

• Pavers made with recycled fly ash for high-traffic areas in poor soil areas
  
• Cisterns for rainwater collection
  
• Baffle (you always wanted to know what a baffle was, didn't you?)
  
• Root Cellar
• Terrace for High Traffic Areas
  
• Retention Pool (more on what this does later...)
  
• Blueberry Hedge
• Berm to lounge against while watching Casa Blanca projected onto the side of the prefab house like David Day always wanted to do with a bunch o' friends
  
• ...and more...

I will go into this, and more, later, but in the meantime need to pack up for another camping weekend in the prefab house kit! In the meantime, check out Topos, a modern landscape architecture firm!

 

Zero Energy Prefab House Kit Update: We Look To The Land.

The zero energy prefab house kit exterior is complete.

In about 2 weeks we move on to the next steps: interior walls of the modern house, off grid systems (solar energy, solar heat, and rainwater collection and filtration), and with it all, stepping back for a larger view: the land, and how we will encourage its health while bearing sustenance for our family.

Heather Barber, ASLA, of Topos met with us last week to discuss the land, and landscape architecture.

From the beginning, here are my thoughts about the land:

• I love the fact we did not have to cut down ONE TREE for the home site.
• However, we are big believers in crop tree release to help the woods become healthy. What that means, in short, is removing weed/competing trees to let the native, desirable trees grow strong and healthy. Along the field we have a mixture of poplar, hickory, oaks, walnut... mixed in with cedar, red bud, pine, a few dogwoods and... non-native evil ghetto palms! Ghetto palms, I'm out to get you!
  
• The 8 acre field can be rotated with
  
• cover crops of warm season grasses that encourage the quail habitat (as well as leaving strips here & there in the fields, and other quail / wildlife management practices)
• potatoes, garlic, onions: With friends we can plant the field, then harvest it together, keeping enough for our families and donating the rest to the Society of St. Andrews. I mean, why glean (although I do look forward to doing that with my friend Peggy, what fun combined with hard work on a gorgeous weekend!) when you could actually plant a field for hunger? (Also note: store bought potatoes have one of the biggest carbon footprints as they often travel quite far to reach the consumer. They're so easy to grow, try growing your own in your back yard!)
  
• eventually move to the Rodale Institute's cover crop roller. Currently we have a tractor with a bush hog and blade.
  
• There is a smaller field downhill from the home site we could irrigate with rainwater... we've tossed around ideas of growing some kind of crop there, like asparagus... but the reality is that as it is much deeper in the woods it will be much more accessible to wildlife... but it's something to think about...
  
• I would love a root cellar in which to store food.
• ...and, I admit, we have a hankering for mid-century coolio functional cooking grills- purposeful practicality with kickin' design. YES I realize this is a murky area, in which I struggle. Half o' me is survivalist (heck my family has survived here for hundreds of years), half of me is forward thinkin' design, and half (fine I never said I was good at math!) o' me wants a third option from the solar cooker and propane marine stove. I mean, if the weed tree is felled, why not use it? (Or not? Considering.)
  
• Handsome Husband and the casa ti green building architect, David Day thought it would be plenty fun to have our friends hang on the slope next to the east side of the house in the evening and project old movies onto that north-east side of the house. They were even tossing around words like, "amphitheater." We'll see.
  They're such romantics. Which is why I love 'em. Which is why they're both more talented than I. : )
• We've already planted apple trees around the shed, and I was pleased to see they are all in bloom and healthy! In a few years we can invite friends over to pick apples!

Now I also must remind myself that we are on a STRICT BUDGET. So maybe most of these ideas will not happen for years. But in the meantime, here are a BUNCH of land pictures, so that the Virginia landscape architect Heather Barber can get a better feel of the entry, field, and area surrounding the modern house kit. I commented on many of the photos, so if there is something that interests you, click on it to see it larger, and with commentary.



We also met with Ron Bernaldo, also known as The Most Fabulous Contractor In The History of the World about our next steps. I can not re-iterate enough how critical having a knowledgeable, experienced contractor has been to the success of our house kit completion. The house kit itself erected easily; but the decisions we had to make as consumers, making the modern off grid house kit "our own"- could not have been affordably or successfully achieved without a contractor like Ron.

Regarding our green building progress, as I mentioned we start again framing the interior, then move on to solar and rainwater collection integration. And THEN we move to interior design of the house kit. Married to a fellow design enthusiast, living our role as house building consumers, I suspect there *might* be design fights ahead.

The first hint came when Handsome Husband nailed up some old sconces. Yes, they do help light the interior of the unfinished SIPs - exposed house kit, but... um...
Fortunately they dribbled wax onto his pristine-just-polished concrete floor so I suspect that will be that. But we shall see... never underestimate Handsome Husband.

So maybe I should start a new blog category, called, "design fight" just in case...

In the meantime, here are a few more pictures of the zero energy modern house, it was a *lovely* weekend on the land!

 

Wildlife + Suburbia. This really is a post about Smart Growth.

What is this, freakin' nostalgia week?

First I write about leetle lamps I saved, then a good friend sent in old pictures of us playing in a band (oh don't think I'm talented- I played the tambourine), then in my green building group I mooned over Finland and my time there in the '90s... think midnight sun, sauna, and lots of berry liquor. (I will overlook describing the mosquitoes the size of small animals in this post. The old growth birch forests more than made up for it.)

Now my dad just sent me a picture of a fox outside their (Crested Butte ski vacation) door, and suddenly I'm pulled into my days living in the Chelsea Hotel, often spent with Vali Meyers. She used to talk about her tamed foxes in Italy, who would follow her around, willing but wild pets who adapted to her presence.

In Virginia, I don't think twice about a fox dashing across the land, far away, across a hill. But this picture from my dad of a fox who adapted to tourists, sniffing about their kitchen door, thus raising the glorious, bad gypsy ghost of Vali, reminded me of the adaptability of wildlife, and that as ignorant suburbs further encroach upon quiet land... I am greatly aware of a shift, a change... They adapt. They adapt or die, and many are adapting to us.

I hear tales of turkey in Boston; friends recount their experiences of coyotes stalking the huntsmen here, peregrine falcons roost downtown, bald eagles and red tailed hawks swoop outside my office window, I see hordes of vultures on suburban doorsteps, otters in the freeway median... and this summer, the first real photo passed on to me (Thank you John! Love my cousins!) of a scouting camera image of a mountain lion in the neighboring county chasing deer... still rejected as myth by the public... (John, you really should pass on that photo to someone.)

Where I'm going with this is that green building is not just about efficiency, it's also about preservation of national resources through private purchase of acreage on the market now, to preserve and conserve. It's smart, slow, well-planned growth, allowing habitats to continue unmolested so that there is still a buffer between wildlife and allowing their avoidance and shying away from us, instead of overcoming a fear of, then depending on, then, frankly, preying on us.

Through smart growth planning, homes can cluster together, enhancing community interaction, while leaving the rest of the tract of land for wildlife and outdoors enjoyment.

I'm just saying that we need to value more our undeveloped land and let the animals be. Not that the copperheads or black widows care. But I do know that a fed bear is a dangerous bear, and it is our fault our careless communities are blending wilderness with completely-ignorant-to-real-life-in-the-country people. It is not an easy balance, and everyone loses.

Through conservation through private and public land purchases and deeds, we protect our national resources and treasure, our landscape, local histories, and wildlife.