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Vocabulary > Home / House
Walter Lubken (1881-1960)
Hancock homestead
July 23, 1910.
Settler from Benson, Minn.
Sun River project, Montana.
1999 print from the original glass negative.
Records of the Bureau of Reclamation.
(115-JAD-224)
http://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/picturing-the-century-photos/hancock-homestead-settler.jpg
Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of
Photography from the National Archives
Eight Portfolios from Part II
http://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/1930-census-photos/photos-2.html
Chicago Sections Of Northern Discrimination
Story
Photographer: Francis Miller
Undated > Late 1940s ?
Life Images
http://www.irish-energy.ie/uploadedfiles/InfoCentre/Buildingenergyeffhome.pdf
YOUR GUIDE TO BUILDING AN ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME
Sustainable enrgy Ireland
added 29.4.2007
With a first floor bedroom and sitting room
suite,
this house would be convenient for visiting in-laws or parents.
The master bedroom is upstairs, along with two more bedrooms.
A conventionally
built laundry and pantry connects the kitchen with the garage.
In the living room windows provide daylight views and the stone fireplace
evening warmth.
The house has a cottage look thanks to the combination of low maintenance
shingles and clapboards.
http://www.timberpeg.com/Customer%20PDF/Alton.pdf
added 29.4.2007
home
home sweet home
sq. ft. > 1 (square foot) (sq foot) = 0.00863097484 m4
home > glossary
http://www.soundhome.com/glossary.shtml
green home
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/may/06/greenbuilding-carbon-emissions
house
house fire
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/nyregion/house-fire-kills-5-in-stamford.html
housekeeper
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/04/cleaning-tips-margaret-mcmullin
detached house
semi-detached house
terraced house
prefabricated house
http://www.momahomedelivery.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/18/arts/0718-DWELL_index.html
House Design by Style and Date
http://www.thevictorianhouse.com/victorianhomesindex.htm
Victorian houses / homes
http://www.thevictorianhouse.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_victorian.shtml
Victorian houses > house plans
1830s-1920s
http://www.thevictorianhouse.com/ebooks/ebooks.htm
haunted house
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1005295,00.html
foundation USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/garden/04foundation.html
porch
entry
attic
cellar
wall
corner
hall
stairs
handrail
staircase
door
window
kitchen
floor
first floor
second floor
room
living room
dining room
bath
bathroom
pantry
closet
garden
landscaping
garage
insulation
orientation
home furnishings
brick
concrete
timber
Timber Frame Homes
http://www.timberpeg.com/index.html
timber house
http://www.housesofthefuture.com.au/hof_houses05.html
house designer
http://www.thehousedesigners.com/
blueprint
http://www.thehousedesigners.com/understanding_blue_prints.asp
plan
http://www.thehousedesigners.com/choosing_the_right_house_plan.asp
Timber Frame Home Custom Plans
http://www.timberpeg.com/gallery-plans-c-pdf.html
house of the future
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1495801,00.html
manor
building
property
estate
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1226009,00.html
housing estate
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1827001,00.html
gatehouse arch
hamlet of houses
Charles Wade > Snowshill Manor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1432037,00.html
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/places/snowshillmanor/
Horace Walpole (1717-1797) > Strawberry Hill
http://www.richmond.gov.uk/depts/opps/eal/leisure/libraries/history/notes/05.htm
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/331/frameset.html
http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=174
picturesque
Gothic / gothic architecture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1125953,00.html
Gothic revival
turret
spire
gable
timber-framed tower
hardwood ogee-shaped porch
hardwood door
carved wooden eaves
romantic cottage orné
country house
acre
planted grounds
arboretum
garden
garden folly
Humphry Repton's Red Book
estate
cottage
low sweeping roof
dormer window
rustic veranda
tree trunk column
rolling hill
wooded bank
al fresco life
French window
furnishings
http://www.irish-energy.ie/uploadedfiles/InfoCentre/Buildingenergyeffhome.pdf
YOUR GUIDE TO BUILDING AN ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME
Sustainable enrgy Ireland
added 29.4.2007
green home
http://www.greenhome.com/
http://society.guardian.co.uk/communities/story/0,,1768574,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,2050071,00.html
energy-efficient home
http://www.irish-energy.ie/uploadedfiles/InfoCentre/Buildingenergyeffhome.pdf
eco-friendly
solar power
energy efficiency
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/13/homes-fail-energy-efficiency-standards
Drop in
homeless count seen as 'success story'
28 July
2008
USA Today
By Wendy Koch
The U.S.
had 12% fewer homeless last year than in 2005, and the greatest decline occurred
among those who chronically live on the streets or in emergency shelters,
according to a federal report to be released Tuesday.
"This is a
success story," says Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor and
co-author of the report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD). He attributes the decline to better tracking and to increased efforts to
house the "chronically homeless" — disabled adults who are continuously homeless
for at least a year.
The number of people on the street or in emergency shelters on a single night in
January, the month in which the tally was taken, fell from 763,010 in 2005 to
671,888 last year, the report says. Most were homeless temporarily. Among those
who were chronically homeless, the number fell from 175,914 in 2005 to 123,833
in 2007.
"This reduction is the largest documented decrease in homelessness in our
nation's history," says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S.
Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal efforts. He says
it shows that the increase in housing units for the long-term homeless, funded
by HUD and communities, is working.
Homeless advocates say the data, which come from 3,800 cities and counties that
receive HUD funds, do not count every homeless person and do not reflect this
year's weaker economy.
"Chronic homelessness may be down, but the non-chronic population is
increasing," says Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the National
Coalition for the Homeless, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. He says
he's getting reports of shelters filling with families that have lost homes to
foreclosure.
A lot of people become homeless when they are forced to choose between paying
for food and gas, which have sharply increased in cost this year, or housing,
says Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a
non-profit group.
"These are tough times," says Culhane, adding that homeless numbers often
reflect the economy. He says this year's homeless data, which HUD is starting to
receive for January, paints a "mixed" picture of increases in some areas, such
as Connecticut, and decreases in others, including New York City.
Mangano sees an upside to the weak housing market, saying foreclosures create
opportunities for communities to buy properties at lower prices to use as
shelters.
For the first time, HUD's report includes a count of people using shelters or
transitional housing during a full year. From October 2006 to September 2007,
1.6 million people sought help for homelessness. Of those, 69% were men, 64%
were minorities, and 30% were in families.
Drop in homeless count seen as 'success story' , UT,
28.7.2008,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-28-homeless_N.htm
Design
Review | ‘Home Delivery’
Instant
Houses, Then and Now
July 18,
2008
The New York Times
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
The idea of
a well-oiled assembly line churning out gleaming and affordable new houses,
flooded with light and as compact as a ship’s cabin, is a well-worn Modernist
fable.
For the average middle-class American, however, prefabricated housing has always
lacked sex appeal. The masses tended to prefer a traditional style, no matter
how shabbily designed, and never really bought into it. Nor did most of the
industrialist tycoons with the money to make the dream real.
So “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling,” which opens on Sunday at
the Museum of Modern Art, is a delightful surprise. Organized by Barry Bergdoll,
MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design, it presents more than 80
projects, from humble experiments in suburban living to stunning works of
creative imagination. In a tour de force Mr. Bergdoll was able to build five
full-scale model houses for the show in a lot just west of the museum. The
effect is startling: expressions of a suburban utopian world surrounded by
Midtown’s looming skyscrapers.
But like all great exhibitions “Home Delivery” is not simply a crowd pleaser.
It’s the kind of loving, scholarly achievement that is rare in today’s
architectural climate, which so often favors cheap spectacle over probing
intellect. Mr. Bergdoll has not only managed to track down some unexpected gems,
he has also arranged them in a way that allows us to see them with fresh eyes.
He makes a convincing case that prefabricated housing was both a central theme
of Modernist history and a dream that remains very much alive today.
To experience the show at full throttle, resist the temptation to go straight to
the model houses and start with the main exhibition in the museum’s sixth-floor
galleries. It opens with a vision from the mass-produced utopia of tomorrow: two
gorgeous wall fragments — one by Ali Rahim and Hina Jamelle, the other by Jesse
Reiser and Nanako Umemoto — that push the limits of customized computer
technologies. Their voluptuous surfaces suggest a hybrid of industrial materials
and free-form organic design.
Just above to the right is a projection of a 1920 Buster Keaton film in which
fumbling young newlyweds try to assemble a prefabricated house. Dropped off the
back of a truck, the house’s various parts were mislabeled by the woman’s jilted
former suitor. The result, once it is assembled, is a chaotic jumble of tilting
walls, irregular windows and doors that open to nowhere.
The film pokes fun at those who spend their lives chasing fantasies. But it also
hints at the instability at the core of any creative venture, teasing out one of
the exhibition’s most haunting themes: the conflict inherent in the so-called
American dream. In many ways the prefab house embodies the tension between a
desire for stability and a quixotic faith in social mobility.
The history of prefabricated dwellings is one of false starts and foiled dreams.
In 1833 a London carpenter identified as H. Manning created one of the first,
the Manning Portable Cottage, for his son, who was sailing off to make his
fortune in Australia. Made of precut wood posts and panels, the house could be
conveniently packed in a ship’s hold and reassembled. A single man could carry
most of its lightweight components, making it ideal for the untamed Australian
wilderness. (The house, which Manning produced in a range of styles, became a
mild commercial success.)
More inventive still was the 1931 Copper House, designed by the Modernist master
Walter Gropius. It was conceived as a system of insulated copper wall panels
that could be easily transported and assembled on site in 24 hours. Despite the
house’s relatively conventional layout and form, a solid box with punched-out
windows and a pitched roof, the glistening copper exterior gave it a haunting
appearance.
The house enjoyed moderate success in Germany. After the Nazis rose to power in
1933, it was marketed to Jews fleeing the country for Palestine. Several of
these houses now stand in Haifa in northern Israel, their weather-beaten copper
skins a poignant testament to a transplanted culture.
Like Henry Ford’s cars, such houses were intended to be mass-produced objects,
affordable machines for both the rising middle class and the working masses. In
Le Corbusier’s famous words they were “machines for living.” But at their most
idealistic, they also sought to express the freedom of a society constantly on
the move. They were in a sense an effort to tear the house up from its
foundations, to make it as mobile as the individuals these buildings were meant
to serve.
That notion reaches full force in the decade immediately after the Second World
War, when most architects believed that military industrial production would be
retooled for the construction of a more egalitarian, peacetime society. That
vision is underlined in the show by the rickety steel frame of Jean Prouvé’s
Maison pour l’Institutrice, a reworking of his 1948 Maison Tropicale, a
masterpiece of prefabricated design that was conceived as a kit of standardized
parts that could be transported by air to the French colonies and assembled on
site. The lightweight frame of its vented roof, which has the airiness of
airplane wings, sums up the aspirations of a generation of architects.
Just beyond it stands a full-scale version of the Lustron House, a suburban home
that began production the same year. If the Maison Tropicale reflects a
wholehearted embrace of the new, the Lustron House is its counterpoint: modern
technology draped in nostalgia. A steel structure manufactured to look like a
conventional suburban wood-frame house, it embodies the fear of the unknown that
has historically pushed the most creative architecture to the periphery of the
profession.
As we all know, the traditionalists won. And from here the show takes a
noticeable turn into fantasy, as if the architects grew to accept the limits of
their dream. The most playful example is Archigram’s 1965 Living Pod, an
amoeba-shaped capsule with mechanical systems plugged into the side. Supported
on squat mechanical legs like an Apollo landing craft, the pod had inflatable
floors and furniture so that it could be packed up and moved easily.
Similarly, Kisho Kurokawa’s 1968-72 Nakagin Capsule Tower is conceived as a
series of rectangular precast concrete pods that plug into a central mast. Each
pod is designed as a minimal space with built-in furniture, a bachelor pad in a
congested, hedonistic metropolis.
The descent from postwar optimism to outright nihilism ends with one of Wes
Jones’s militaristic Primitive Huts (1994-98). A rigid steel frame on which
mechanical shutters are mounted, the hut is covered by a pitched roof made of
uneven wood logs. The heavy shutters look like protective shields; it could be
an ideal hideaway for a recluse, Unabomber style, suggesting American
individualism taken to its darkest extreme.
If the narrative ended here, the show would be a total downer. But it doesn’t.
Just as you begin to lose hope, you encounter ingenious works by Greg Lynn and
Teddy Cruz. From Mr. Lynn there is a blob-shaped “embryonic” house that can be
reconfigured by a client using computer software; from Mr. Cruz, a photo montage
of discarded materials like used tires and sheets of corrugated metal that are
recycled to create low-cost dwellings in Tijuana.
The fragments of wall too, once so mysterious, are also fraught with new
meanings once you’ve seen the show. No longer simply sleek aesthetic objects
that would seem at home in a glossy magazine, they are serious investigations
into how machines can be used to generate a better way of life. Customization
and mass production have finally bonded.
This new optimism reaches its crescendo outdoors with the model homes. Of these
the Burst*008 beach house, designed by Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier, is
the most formally innovative. Its fractured, overlapping planes, laid out by
computer, were cut out of nearly 200 plywood sheets. Nearby is the Micro Compact
Home by Horden Cherry Lee Architects and Haack & Höpfner Architects, a steel pod
with a single mast rising from the roof and supporting a solar panel; it is
conceived as a “minimal” house that can be lowered by crane onto a remote site.
Its movable parts allow the inhabitant to reconfigure the interior according to
his or her needs.
Yet the work that best embodies the show’s spirit is Kieran Timberlake
Associates’ four-story Cellophane House. Supported on a lightweight steel frame
that is bolted together so that it can be taken apart easily, it is as simple to
assemble as a child’s Erector Set. Photovoltaic cells are integrated into the
structure’s transparent cellophane skin, their copper filaments tracing a
delicate pattern across the facade. The skin gives the house an ethereal,
temporary quality, and it stands so gently on its site that it seems afraid of
doing harm to its surroundings.
Environmentally sensitive and devoid of cynicism, it’s a perfect end to the
show. Hope rises again, more cautious and subdued — a sign that we’re finally
learning to navigate the line between heroism and hubris.
“Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling”
continues through Oct. 20 at
the Museum of Modern Art, (212)708-9400, moma.org.
Instant Houses, Then and Now, NYT, 18.7.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html?hp
Op-Ed
Columnist
Home
Not-So-Sweet Home
June 23,
2008
The New York Times
By PAUL KRUGMAN
“Owning a
home lies at the heart of the American dream.” So declared President Bush in
2002, introducing his “Homeownership Challenge” — a set of policy initiatives
that were supposed to sharply increase homeownership, especially for minority
groups.
Oops. While homeownership rose as the housing bubble inflated, temporarily
giving Mr. Bush something to boast about, it plunged — especially for
African-Americans — when the bubble popped. Today, the percentage of American
families owning their own homes is no higher than it was six years ago, and it’s
a good bet that by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House homeownership will
be lower than it was when he moved in.
But here’s a question rarely asked, at least in Washington: Why should
ever-increasing homeownership be a policy goal? How many people should own
homes, anyway?
Listening to politicians, you’d think that every family should own its home — in
fact, that you’re not a real American unless you’re a homeowner. “If you own
something,” Mr. Bush once declared, “you have a vital stake in the future of our
country.” Presumably, then, citizens who live in rented housing, and therefore
lack that “vital stake,” can’t be properly patriotic. Bring back property
qualifications for voting!
Even Democrats seem to share the sense that Americans who don’t own houses are
second-class citizens. Early last year, just as the mortgage meltdown was
beginning, Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who is one of
Barack Obama’s top advisers, warned against a crackdown on subprime lending.
“For be it ever so humble,” he wrote, “there really is no place like home, even
if it does come with a balloon payment mortgage.”
And the belief that you’re nothing if you don’t own a home is reflected in U.S.
policy. Because the I.R.S. lets you deduct mortgage interest from your taxable
income but doesn’t let you deduct rent, the federal tax system provides an
enormous subsidy to owner-occupied housing. On top of that, government-sponsored
enterprises — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks — provide
cheap financing for home buyers; investors who want to provide rental housing
are on their own.
In effect, U.S. policy is based on the premise that everyone should be a
homeowner. But here’s the thing: There are some real disadvantages to
homeownership.
First of all, there’s the financial risk. Although it’s rarely put this way,
borrowing to buy a home is like buying stocks on margin: if the market value of
the house falls, the buyer can easily lose his or her entire stake.
This isn’t a hypothetical worry. From 2005 through 2007 alone — that is, at the
peak of the housing bubble — more than 22 million Americans bought either new or
existing houses. Now that the bubble has burst, many of those homebuyers have
lost heavily on their investment. At this point there are probably around 10
million households with negative home equity — that is, with mortgages that
exceed the value of their houses.
Owning a home also ties workers down. Even in the best of times, the costs and
hassle of selling one home and buying another — one estimate put the average
cost of a house move at more than $60,000 — tend to make workers reluctant to go
where the jobs are.
And these are not the best of times. Right now, economic distress is
concentrated in the states with the biggest housing busts: Florida and
California have experienced much steeper rises in unemployment than the nation
as a whole. Yet homeowners in these states are constrained from seeking
opportunities elsewhere, because it’s very hard to sell their houses.
Finally, there’s the cost of commuting. Buying a home usually though not always
means buying a single-family house in the suburbs, often a long way out, where
land is cheap. In an age of $4 gas and concerns about climate change, that’s an
increasingly problematic choice.
There are, of course, advantages to homeownership — and yes, my wife and I do
own our home. But homeownership isn’t for everyone. In fact, given the way U.S.
policy favors owning over renting, you can make a good case that America already
has too many homeowners.
O.K., I know how some people will respond: anyone who questions the ideal of
homeownership must want the population “confined to Soviet-style concrete-block
high-rises” (as a Bloomberg columnist recently put it). Um, no. All I’m
suggesting is that we drop the obsession with ownership, and try to level the
playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting.
And while we’re at it, let’s try to open our minds to the possibility that those
who choose to rent rather than buy can still share in the American dream — and
still have a stake in the nation’s future.
Home Not-So-Sweet Home, NYT, 23.6.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/opinion/23krugman.html
The New Trophy Home, Small and Ecological
June 22, 2008
The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER
For the high-profile crowd that turned out to celebrate a new
home in Venice, Calif., the attraction wasn’t just the company and the
architectural detail. The house boasted the builders’ equivalent of a three-star
Michelin rating: a LEED platinum certificate.
The actors John Cusack and Pierce Brosnan, with his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, a
journalist, came last fall to see a house that the builders promised would “emit
no harmful gases into the atmosphere,” “produce its own energy” and incorporate
recycled materials, from concrete to countertops.
Behind the scenes were Tom Schey, a homebuilder in Santa Monica, and his
business partner, Kelly Meyer, an environmentalist whose husband, Ron, is the
president of Universal Studios. Ms. Meyer said their goal was to show that
something energy-conscious “doesn’t have to look as if you got it off the bottom
shelf of a health-food store.”
“It doesn’t have to smell like hemp,” she said.
That was probably a good thing. The four-bedroom house was for sale, with a $2.8
million asking price.
Its rating was built into that price. LEED — an acronym for Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design, is the hot designer label, and platinum is the badge
of honor — the top classification given by the U.S. Green Building Council.
“There’s kind of a green pride, like driving a Prius,” said Brenden McEneaney, a
green building adviser to the city of Santa Monica, adding, “It’s spreading all
over the place.”
Devised eight years ago for the commercial arena, the ratings now cover many
things, including schools and retail interiors. But homes are the new frontier.
While other ratings are widely recognized, like the federal Energy Star for
appliances, the LEED brand stands apart because of its four-level rankings —
certified, silver, gold and platinum — and third-party verification. So far this
year, 10,250 new home projects have registered for the council’s consideration,
compared with 3,100 in 2006, the first year of the pilot home-rating system.
Custom-built homes dominate the first batch of certified dwellings. Today,
dinner-party bragging rights are likely to include: “Let me tell you about my
tankless hot water heater.” Or “what’s the R value of your insulation?”
But if a platinum ranking is a Prada label for some, for others, it is a prickly
hair shirt. Try asking buyers used to conspicuous consumption (a
12,000-square-foot house) to embrace conspicuous nonconsumption (say, 2,400
square feet for a small family). Or to earn points by recycling and weighing all
their construction debris (be warned: a bathroom scale probably won’t cut it).
The imperatives of comfort and eco-friendliness are not always in sync.
For instance, the Brosnans, environmental advocates who admired Ms. Meyer’s
house, are now building a home of their own and “really want to do it green,”
said David Hertz, their architect. Mr. Brosnan may adopt many environmentally
sound building techniques, but he “is not going to live in a 2,400-square-foot
home,” the architect said.
Mr. Hertz’s complaint goes beyond size. He says the rating system is rigid and
cumbersome, something that has been heard across the country as green building
slowly ceases to be a do-gooder’s hobby. The ratings are now woven into building
codes in Los Angeles, Boston and Dallas. The federal government and many states
and cities use LEED standards or the equivalent for their own buildings. The
system is based on points earned for a variety of eco-friendly practices;
builders choose among them, balancing the goals of cost control, design and high
point totals.
Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia, not to mention Chicago, Cincinnati and Bar
Harbor, Me., give tax incentives or other concessions, like expedited permitting
or utility hookups, for construction that is up to the nonprofit council’s
standards.
And “LEED-accredited professional” is a new occupational status.
Worries about climate change and rising energy costs are part of the equation:
roughly 21 percent of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions come from homes;
nearly 40 percent come from residential and commercial structures combined. As
energy prices rise, the long-range economic value and short-range social cachet
of green building are converging.
More than 1,500 commercial buildings and 684 homes have been certified but just
48 homes have received the platinum ranking, among them a four-bedroom home in
Freeport, Me., as well as homes in Minneapolis; Callaway, Fla.; Dexter, Mich.;
and Paterson, N.J. The checklist for certification can be more daunting than a
private-school application, which prompts many to abandon the quest. Mr. Schey
is not seeking LEED certification on his next home (though the project’s
architect, Melinda Gray, is seeking it for hers).
Randy Udall, a builder in Colorado who wrote a piece critical of the process
after building two accredited ski resort additions, said, “You’re happy when
you’re released from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Abu Ghraib,” though he
added, “You typically end up with a delightful building.”
One requirement for getting a home certified is hiring an on-site inspector
approved by the council to test the new systems and help fill out the huge
amount of paperwork, which is reviewed by the nonprofit council. The
organization charges from $400 for a home to $22,500 for the largest buildings
to register and certify costs.
Joel McKellar, a researcher with LS3P Associates, an architecture firm in
Charleston, S.C., said that to earn credit for adequate natural light, “you have
to calculate the area of the room, the area of the windows, how much visible
transmittance of light there is.”
Michael Lehrer, who designed the platinum-rated Water + Life Museum complex in
Hemet, outside Los Angeles, said, “They have mundane things in there that are
pretty nonsensical and others things that are pretty profound.” He added, “At a
time when everybody and their sister and brother are saying ‘We are green,’ it’s
very important that these things be vetted in a credible way.”
To cope with the growing appetite for accreditation, the council this spring
asked other agencies to help make LEED certifications. A new code, which
addresses some of the criticisms, is at
www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1849.
Is LEED a useful selling tool? Offered with great fanfare last fall on eBay for
$2.8 million, the Meyer/Schey home in Venice, which can be seen on their Web
site, www.Project7ten.com got no bids at the time; it recently found a potential
buyer, for $2.5 million.
But Maria Chao, an architect in Amherst, Mass., said her new home’s
certification rating had meant instant recognition. “This is a small town,” Ms.
Chao said. “When I mention I live in the house on Snell St., people say, ‘Oh,
the green home.’ ”
Frances Anderton, a KCRW radio host and Los Angeles editor of Dwell magazine,
longs for the day when LEED recognition is irrelevant. “Architects should be
offering a green building service,” Ms. Anderton said, “without needing a badge
of pride.”
The New Trophy Home,
Small and Ecological, NYT, 22.6.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/us/22leed.html
Robots Take on Social Tasks
September 27, 2007
Filed at 6:57 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON (AP) -- Dominated by home-cleaning gadgets, the
consumer robotics market is expanding with the arrival of 'bots that can spy
inside your home when you're away or arrange virtual meetings of family or
friends.
Robotics experts say gadgets introduced Thursday could usher more socially
oriented robots into the U.S. market, though they bear little physical
resemblance to humans or pets as robots embraced by consumers in Japan and South
Korea do.
''As these kinds of devices mature in the years ahead, I expect them to
gradually become more sophisticated in terms of providing gestures, object
interaction such as picking things up, and eventually moving toward a more human
shape,'' said James Kuffner, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon
University's Robotics Institute.
A new device by iRobot Corp. resembles the company's disc-shaped Roomba vacuum
cleaner but has a webcam bulging from the top.
It's designed to enable parents on a business trip to feel they're almost at
home. For example, a parent could remotely send the wheeled robot into a
bedroom, where the children could open a book in front of the robot's camera.
The parent could then read the story aloud and watch and hear the kids'
reactions. The family could also converse.
The robot can be controlled from within the home or remotely, using a Web
connection to a home wireless network. The user can operate the robot with
either a joystick or a computer installed with iRobot-supplied software.
Color digital video streams only one way, meaning a traveling parent could see
the kids but not vice versa. Up to 10 parties can have PIN-number access to the
gadget, allowing distant relatives or friends to keep in touch, as well as
immediate family.
For now, iRobot is offering limited quantities -- the Burlington, Mass., company
won't say how many -- under a pilot program. For $199, select participants can
take the device home, test it out and offer comments. IRobot says ConnectR will
become broadly available early next year for less than $500.
IRobot isn't turning its attention away from task-oriented robots. On Thursday,
the company also announced the Looj, designed to clean roof gutters -- a messy
job requiring repeated trips up and down a ladder. Looj, costing less than $100,
propels itself via remote control as it sweeps out gunk. It still requires
climbing a ladder to place the device in the gutter. And since Looj can't turn
corners, that means at least four trips up and down.
Another product introduced Thursday at the DigitalLife technology conference in
New York bears little resemblance to the new iRobot ConnectR, though it too
enables seeing remotely. Spykee the WiFi spy robot, developed by France-based
Meccano and marketed in the U.S. by Erector, best known for its Erector Set
kits, has tank-style track wheels, two decorative mechanical arms and a camera
on top that looks vaguely like a human head.
Enthusiasts, who must assemble it themselves from about 200 parts, can choose
among three configurations. Spykee's audio and video technology is similar to
the new iRobot product's, but it's being pitched as a device to check on the
pets when you're on vacation or find out what the kids are doing at home alone
after school.
Spykee's makers also say the gadget could potentially help catch a home intruder
if placed near a door or window. If the robot's motion sensor is triggered, it
can activate an alarm, or snap a digital photo and e-mail it to the homeowner.
Meccano will offer Spykee Nov. 27 for about $299.
Both new robots attempt to give remote users ''virtual presence'' -- a concept
that's proven useful for doctors at a Baltimore hospital who rely on a $150,000
robot to remotely check in with hospital patients by sending the gadget to their
bedside.
Now, similar robots at lower cost are possible in the consumer market.
''Advances in computer hardware, software, and lower-cost cameras, microphones
and other sensing devices are enabling this to happen,'' said Kuffner, the
robotics professor.
Neena Buck, a Cambridge, Mass.-based independent robotics analyst, said that
although the models introduced Thursday are socially oriented, they're still a
far cry from the human-like robots that have caught on in Asia.
''In the U.S., we want our robots to be utilitarian, and act as helpers to us,''
Buck said. ''In Japan and Korea, they think of robots as friends and pets, and
as additions to their families.''
But as prices come down, ''I think Americans will be willing to experiment with
cute-ish robots that do something like bring a family together,'' she said.
------
On the Net:
IRobot Corp.: http://www.irobot.com
Spykee:
http://erectorusa.com/category--pages/spykee.html
Robots Take on Social
Tasks, NYT, 27.9.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Home-Robots.html
LEDs Move Into Home Lighting Market
June 24, 2007
Filed at 9:21 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EVERETT, Mass. (AP) -- Joey Nicotera's fascination with
multicolored light bulbs bordered on obsession when he was a teenager. He framed
posters in lights and decorated his own Christmas tree. When he couldn't find a
color bulb he wanted, he got paint cans from the basement and made some himself,
bathing his second-story bedroom in an eerie glow.
''I'd be driving home from work at night, and I could see his room from five
blocks away, with all the weird colors and flashing lights,'' recalls his
father, Joe Nicotera Sr.
Joey is now 32 and out of the family home. But a rainbow of ever-changing colors
still emanates from his current living space, an 840-square-foot loft
condominium in a renovated candy bar factory in Everett, just north of Boston.
Instead of painting light bulbs, Nicotera spent $5,000 to equip his bachelor pad
with 54 fixtures containing light-emitting diodes, or LEDs -- devices similar to
computer semiconductors that convert electricity into light and stream it out of
glass domes the size of matchstick heads.
They may be pricey now, but LEDs are being touted as eventual replacements for
standard, incandescent bulbs and even compact fluorescents because of their
growing efficiency and predictions of increasingly lower costs.
And as LEDs expand their reach into the aesthetic-minded market for home
lighting, they boast something traditional lighting sources can't: LEDs can be
programmed to emit light in virtually any color without the use of filters,
enabling homeowners to design their own living room light shows, or tailor the
color of the light to their mood.
''If colored light is needed, now there is a technology that can cater to
that,'' said Nadarajah Narendran, director of lighting research at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
Nicotera counts himself among an apparent handful of lighting enthusiasts around
the country who have outfitted their homes with large numbers of LEDs. Now, his
pad is a popular party spot and a great place to bring dates.
''I wanted a Vegas cocktail lounge look, with a Jetsons flavor to it,'' said
Nicotera, an information technology manager in Boston. ''I always figured that
George and Jane would have walls that changed color,'' he said of the old TV
cartoon characters.
Narendran says niche applications are already emerging as homeowners install
LEDs to light display cabinets and add color to high-end home theaters. But it's
hard to say how many homeowners will follow Nicotera's example by installing
color LEDs and programming light shows.
''It's a matter of personal preference, like fashions,'' Narendran said.
Nicotera installed all his LED fixtures himself. Each contains 45 to 75 of the
tiny spotlight-producing LEDs, commonly used in on-off indicators for
electronics and appliances. He doesn't have any incandescent bulbs and relies on
50 halogen fixtures for overhead light.
He says his 54 LED fixtures together use less electricity than a single 100-watt
incandescent and account for just $2 a month on his utility bill.
But it's the light show capabilities that capture Nicotera's interest. He taps
controls on a wall switch panel to choose among eight programs or uses lighting
control software on his laptop to expand programming options even further. Each
program varies the color and brightness of the LED arrays in hanging lamps and
the LED strips in backlit wall shelving and kitchen cabinets.
The wall switch and laptop are linked to a flash memory device and a pair of
VCR-sized transformers that control the lights from a hallway closet. Shelves
and cabinets abruptly shift from one hue to the next or shimmer gradually
through the spectrum, bathing the condo's neutral gray walls in light.
Nicotera runs a red-white-and-blue program each Fourth of July, and he can
change colors on shelf panels to simulate Tetris, the falling-blocks video
puzzle game. When Italy won soccer's World Cup last year, Nicotera displayed
Italy's national colors in his first-floor condo, which is visible to nearby
traffic.
''It was all red, white and green,'' Nicotera said. ''People who would drive by
would honk their horns.''
Because of their color advantage, LEDs are being used to light display shelves
at jewelry stores and supply ambiance in restaurants. Hotels are installing LEDs
to provide splashes of exterior color. And Toronto's CN Tower is being lit this
month with more than 1,300 color-changing LEDs running up the 1,815-foot
structure.
As for LEDs that cast white light, Narendran expects it will be five to 10 years
before such products begin seriously challenging other light sources in homes.
So far, cost is the biggest obstacle, but that should change over the next few
decades.
Three years ago, the first 10 fixtures Nicotera mounted in the bathroom ceiling
cost $125 apiece. Since then, the cost has come down to less than $75 each. He
says he hasn't had to replace or fix any of his LEDs, which are touted to run
continuously for 11 years.
Last Tuesday, Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV expanded its LED
presence by offering $688 million to acquire Color Kinetics Inc., a decade-old
Boston company that designed the CN Tower's new lighting and holds patents on
systems to control LED color and brightness.
Fritz Morgan, Color Kinetics' chief technology officer, said the semiconductor
technology underlying LEDs is becoming more affordable and efficient at a rate
on par with advances in computing speed. Today's LEDs are about as efficient as
the latest compact fluorescents, Morgan said, and they are improving faster than
fluorescents.
''There's been a dramatic increase in just two or three years, where LEDs went
from being as efficient as incandescents, to then being as good as halogens, to
now being at the level of compact fluorescents,'' Morgan said.
Nicotera -- whose home is equipped with Color Kinetics LED products bought
through distributors -- is so impressed with the technology that he's put his
condo up for sale and plans to build a new home from scratch, equipped
exclusively with LEDs.
His condo is being offered at $359,000 -- he may throw in the unit's LED lights
and controls for a little extra, subject to negotiation.
Although the LEDs may turn off some prospective buyers, Nicotera's mother is
proof that there can be rewards to investing in a new technology. She was
initially skeptical when her son started planning his condo's design.
''When he started talking about having a wall of lights, I couldn't really
imagine what he was talking about,'' Linda Nicotera said. ''I thought it was
going to look like a disco, or something on the tacky side.
''But there was a 'wow' factor when I finally saw it. It ended a lot better than
I thought.''
LEDs Move Into Home
Lighting Market, NYT, 24.6.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-LED-Bachelor-Pad.html
The green house effect: Eco-houses get closer
The home of the future will be kind to the environment.
This
week ministers laid the foundations
Published: 25 May 2007
The Independent
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
The Eco-House, the one which doesn't damage the planet with
its profligate energy use, has just got closer.
Not as imminent as it needs to be. But after three big sets of government
proposals in the space of four days, the road to the energy-saving home which is
sustainable as well as comfortable is certainly clearer than it was.
White Papers on planning and energy (plus a new strategy for waste disposal)
have this week all set out ways of making Britain's housing stock much more
environmentally friendly.
Not before time. Although most of the attention in the fight against climate
change is focused on greenhouse gas emissions from power stations, motor
vehicles and aircraft, emissions from buildings are hugely significant - as the
Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, is constantly keen to
point out.
Just look at the figures. Britain's emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal
gas causing global warming, were 152 million tonnes (expressed as millions of
tonnes of carbon, mtC) in 2004, and of this, emissions from the domestic
building stock were 41.7mtC - no less than 27 per cent of the total.
Most of that energy goes on heating water and heating space. (For the record, 53
per cent goes on space heating, 20 per cent on water heating, 16 per cent to
power appliances such as computers and televisions, 6 per cent on lighting and 5
per cent on cooking.)
But much of that can be cut right back - as of course it will have to be if the
Government is to meet its climate change target of slashing UK carbon emissions
by 60 per cent by 2050.
It can be done in two ways - by energy-saving measures in the home, and also by
decentralising the electricity supply system so that power is generated locally,
on a small scale, rather than at a huge power station far away, which wastes
much of the energy it produces in transmission. In some places this has produced
astonishing results: Woking in Surrey reduced its carbon emissions by 77.4 per
cent between 1992 and 2004.
Local generation may take place in a miniature power station serving a small
community, but taken to its logical conclusion, you can do it in your own home,
with solar panels on your roof or even a mini-wind turbine à la David Cameron.
This is known as "microgeneration".
On Monday, the Planning White Paper published by the Department of Communities
and Local Government set out to make microgeneration easier. That didn't make
the headlines - they were concerned with the easier ride that was going to be
given in future to large infrastructure projects such as airports, motorways and
superstores.
But published with the main document was a 52-page consultation paper entitled
"Permitted Development Rights for Householder Microgeneration". In essence, it
spelt out a future where no clipboard-carrying council official is going to
glance at the turbine on your roof, shake his head, and mutter, "That'll have to
come down."
At present, there are substantial bureaucratic obstacles to domestic solar
energy, wind power and other technologies such as ground source heat pumps,
biomass burning and combined heat and power - they need planning permission. The
consultation proposes that (within limits) they should be "permitted
developments" for which official sanction does not need to be sought.
The reason is clear. A recent study, the paper reports, "suggested that 30 to 40
per cent of the United Kingdom's electricity demands could be met through the
use of these technologies by 2050".
But home-generated wind power and the rest represent only half of the story.
Energy-saving measures such as insulation are just as important in reducing
carbon, if not more important, than "gadgets on the roof".
In the Energy White Paper, published on Wednesday by the Department of Trade and
Industry, where, again, the big story was elsewhere - this time all about
nuclear power - the Government proposed measures to give energy-saving a
substantial boost. The principal one was to alter the role of the energy
companies. In future, their job will be not just to sell units of electricity -
it will be to sell energy services, and that means selling energy-saving
measures such as cavity wall insulation.
Other proposals included supplying new real-time visual display meters, so you
can see how much electricity you are using at any given moment; and talks with
the electronics industry on reducing the time spent on standby by the
proliferating number of household electrical appliances, the computers, TVs, DVD
players and the rest. (Their standby time accounts for about 7 per cent of all
the electricity used in UK homes.)
Finally, yesterday the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
published another hefty document, the new Waste Strategy for England. This too
helps bring the Eco-House nearer, not just with its extensive proposals for
recycling, but with the specific proposition that food waste should in future be
collected separately, every week - and turned into fuel or compost. Organic
waste such as food adds to climate change - because it produces methane as it
rots, which is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
None of these proposals will bring about the green home overnight. They do,
however, point in the right direction.
The green house
effect: Eco-houses get closer, I, 25.5.2007,
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2581246.ece
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