Smart Energy

ZeroHouse is an interesting design by architectural firm Specht Harpman that recently caught my eye. I wonder how I can get a review copy of this building? ZeroHouse was featured a couple months ago in Dwell magazine’s Prefab issue. Here’s the bottom of the article — and the ‘graph featured on the architects’ blog:

With its eco-cachet and forward-looking functionality, the zeroHouse aspires to become the Prius of prefab. Like a hybrid car, it is a tool for lifestyle change that anticipates challenges and arms owners with solutions before the problems have fully taken hold. Owners get to feel both responsible and stylistically bold—a perfect formula for setting a trend.

By my calculations, the building is 864 square feet, while the Dwell article says the building costs $350,000: that’s over $400 per square foot! From the Dwell article:

We are gearing the house toward first-adopter clients who are interested in the potential of a fully self-sufficient, environmentally clean, yet extremely comfortable, residence, says Specht.

I have a couple questions, though, ones not answered by the architects’, Specht Harpman, site, nor the article in Dwell. To be clear, my questions are inspired by a posting on Beautiful Life, which seems to read into the house more than either the architects or the Dwell article claim for the building. (For instance, Beautiful Life says this 864 sq. ft. building is home to four adults, a claim I don’t see on Dwell or Specht Harpman.)

The residence is composed of two 36×12-foot modules – “the maximum width legally permitted for interstate truck transport,” according to Dwell – arranged in a cross, and topped by a solar-panel module. The house, according to the architects’ site, is “easily shipped and quickly erected” and “operates completely off the grid.” One of the illustrations of the as-yet drawing-board-only dwelling is situated in a desert locale – from my experience, an environment of very high winds. It’s hard to imagine this thing not taking wing, like Icarus, because, in order to be easily shipped, it’s probably not terribly massive. Then again, for $350K, maybe it’s made of concrete…

The building’s mass raises another question. The architects’ site provides no materials specifications but, again, do to shipping costs, the building is probably none too massive. So even with state-of-the-art computational capacity, it looks like it’s going to be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, do to a lack of insulative capacity. I could be wrong, though, as perhaps the building ships with some sort of SIPs (structural insulated panels). It’s hard to say, as none of the PR goes into much detail. And, indeed, the house has been the subject of much hype; Specht told Dwell that DuPont

“ran a series of ads in the Wall Street Journal featuring large pictures of the house. There was a lot of discussion about building a full-scale version. Ultimately, DuPont’s campaign strategy changed, and they decided against pursuing the approach. Our belief in the project didn’t end there, however, and we decided to take it further on our own.”

In any case, friends with solar panels in windy climes have recounted an issue that comes to mind with the zeroHouse: noise. Large-surface-area panels, not surprisingly, resonate in the wind. Even a mild wind, like the five-10 MPH zephyrs of the Palouse, cause significant resonance and considerable racket.

Then there’s the “off the grid” claim. It’s hard to see how ZeroHouse is going to be totally self-sufficient on solar alone. In the Spokane area of the Pacific Northwest and with current technology, solar can supply only about 25 percent of residential energy needs (this is a rough-and-ready number that comes from WSU Extension’s Energy Program). Again, it’s possible I may be missing something, as the architects’ site and the Dwell article are high on PR and low on facts.

I guess the nail in the coffin, at least for me, is this drawing:

I do credit the architects, as stated in the Dwell article, with having spent “years” conceptualizing the design of this home. But it’s hard for me to imagine a serious “off the grid” pioneer (one willing to shell out U.S.$350K, no less) eating Corn Flakes. But, then, I hate Corn Flakes and maybe the architects wake up to them everyday. More power (no pun intended) to them.