The idea of sustainability is both privileged and confused. While best practices - natural ventilation, rational orientation and openings, thermal mass, use of renewables, net zero construction - can be found in traditional architectures, environmental culture in the USA remains both exotic and contested. The comfortable find it superfluous. Others think it’s a foible of the organic Chardonnay-drinking, Tesla-driving, rich. Our national government believes climate change is a hoax. We don’t. And, we see the environmental burden very unevenly shared, with the poor, the elderly, and communities of color disproportionately afflicted. Our project is grassroots: a battered community remakes and sustains itself via the tools of home-grown, green systems, buildings, practices, and habits.

Rational and appropriate technology is at the core. Our project offers a new interpretation of the classic “four-flat” that’s both flexible and replicable. Construction is timber with four basic elements: columns, beams, CLT plates, and modular exterior panels. All are dimensioned for ease of erection and fabrication by local small contractors, carpenters, and apprentices: a school and a lab for building, sustainable adaptation, agriculture, and community organizing. This spirit of sharing is central and includes, on site, collective recreation, agriculture, community meeting spaces, a “spare bedroom” for guests (or Airbnb) and the instructive visibility of environmental systems. These houses will be an “export” product, transforming and enriching neighborhoods and spreading the word.

First sustainable priority is the implementation of passive measures: thick, heavily insulated walls, thermal glazing, cross ventilation, and seasonal shading. House As Garden is built of manufactured wood. Photovoltaics provide power for its heat pump and appliances, topped up by storage batteries and a new local grid. The building will be net carbon positive, thanks to key systems and materials and its extensive greenery and lush orchard. Rainwater is collected and cisterned. Blackwater is remediated via anaerobic digestion and resulting grey water is recirculated for toilet flushes (all appliances low water and energy) and watering. Recycling and composting will be easy. Cars and bikes are shared. A focus of community pride and place, it will celebrate the logic and ease of truly sustainable living.

To achieve net negative, materials are sourced for lowest embodied and emitted carbon. Engineered lumber structure sequesters 35 tons of CO2 and reduces greenhouse emissions vs. alternative materials by 75 tons for a 110-ton total benefit. Heating and cooling energy from metered photovoltaic array (estimated at 40,000 KWh/hour/year) and hot water from direct solar. Transport and manufacturing CO2 reduced by on-site fabrication and low-energy construction methods. Robust insulation with carbon negative dense-pack cellulose reduces emissivity on supply and demand sides. Low impact concrete/CMU foundations and retaining walls further cut via green mix, long cure, CO2 injection, light weight, reduced cement, non-fossil fuel SCM and are offset by net negative output of other systems and materials.