aanmelden
[ klik hier ] of
tel. 070-3569978

Green home building may have passed the tipping point toward general public acceptance, but it still remains an arcane subject for the average person. Both in the broad philosophy and definition of what constitutes green building and in the specific details of design and construction technique, the field continues to define itself. A tremendous array of options present themselves to would-be green builders and green home buyers. Whether they're weighing the benefits of competing wall systems and insulation, energy-source options, water conservation, lot location, or even which green-building certification program standard to follow, these folks face the challenge of decision making based on a developing knowledge base. The ground shifts constantly, standards evolve, the performance bar gets raised, and options open while inherited wisdom succumbs to newer smarter approaches.

Into this landscape comes Ted Owens' book and DVD, Building with Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home. A thorough and thoroughly thought-out case study, the book and DVD combine empowering how-to information with an inside view to the decision making Owens went through as he built his Corrales, New Mexico, home. (The house was featured in the Spring 2006 issue of Su Casa. You can view it on our website or at Owens' site buildingwithawareness.com, where you can also order the DVD/book package. Building with Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home is also now available through the Gaiam catalog.)

Owens is a man of many talents. A filmmaker, designer, writer, and juror in the recent Su Casa/Build Green New Mexico awards competition, he also undertook building his own home, albeit with help from a good many friends, strawbale workshoppers, and conventional subcontractors.

The book tracks pretty closely to the contents of the DVD, though as Owens writes in the introduction, the hard copy "leans towards the nuts and bolts of construction." In both media, high-level concepts include things like how passive solar energy works, designing for solar orientation (where a time-lapse video segment shows sunlight and shadow sweeping elegantly across the faux-flagstone concrete floor of the finished home). Details of construction range across how to score and cut adobe brick, recipes for earth plaster (don't forget the wheat paste!), all about rainwater cisterns, and so on, from foundation to roof peak. Owens also includes references from the book to the exact location on the DVD for the corresponding video, so you can literally see how he and his crew did it priceless.

You can watch the video straight through for its edutainment value, with plenty of pretty shots of the cute house nestled in rural Corrales, New Mexico, with the Sandia Mountains rising to the east. Owens has a light and elegant touch as a filmmaker, giving images room to resonate emotionally and making hard work look like fun. But you can also dig around in the DVD for how-to hints, using the book as a road map to the DVD. That's a smart just-do-it combination.

Few of us will ever build our own homes. That notwithstanding, at Su Casa we find that many of our readers and many of the folks in our articles like to be closely involved in the design and construction of their houses, whether ground-up new construction or major remodel. Ted Owens' mission, made explicit in the book/DVD title, is to encourage building with awareness - whether you do the work yourself or hire a contractor.