Pre-fab is considered a greener choice. But, what is green about it? Components are assembled in a factory so they are considered to be built more precisely. Precise construction means better quality, longer lasting, and less air leaks and thus better heating and cooling performance.  Secondly, quite often recycled materials are used in the construction.  Third, there is less waste when components are built on modular dimensions and why is that? Because each component has been designed and thought about ahead of time.

Then there’s finishes. Finishes are typically what drives both cost and “green” ness of a project. If you want a rare wood from the rainforest on your floors, then you won’t get the green points in that department.

Also, an aspect of green design that we think is fundamentally important, is the way a building sits on a site. How it shades the sunlight; what is known as passive solar design should be carefully considered in the design process no matter if the project is pre-fab or traditionally stick framed. You will need to have an architect design the pre-fab house and you will be more likely to get green benefits from a good design than just from the fact that the walls, floors and roof are assembled in a factory.

Another point to consider is how far away are the components traveling from? If the factory is based in Tracy, CA, then you’re buying the gas for the truck that drives out to the job site. If you buy lumber at Beronio Lumber just off Bayshore, there’s no factory between where the wood is sold and the site. Just the very nature of building in San Francisco can be considered green since the infrastructure is already here and because so many materials are brought here to serve a dense population. There is an economy of scale going on.

Some say prefab is less costly than regular custom construction. Again, a lot depends on transportation, labor costs, and finishes. Transportation, cranes, staging and coordination are all added costs, required no matter what, but possibly higher with pre-fab. Also, you will still need an architect to design the house and coordinate the various people involved. You will still need a custom engineered and site built foundation. You still have to contend with codes and setbacks. You will still need someone to assemble the house, wire it, and install finishes. Again, finishes are a huge variable. They come from all over the world, and if you have to have that particular tile or stone, its going to cost the same no matter if its going into the pre-fab house or the custom house. Also the labor to install it is the same, too.

One final thing to consider is how accessible the site is for this kind of construction. The components are large and have to be trucked in. The truck has to park near the site. Usually a crane is involved in picking the pieces up off the truck and installing them on the foundation. The site will need to be prepared for the components. San Francisco has some pretty tight streets and parking is a premium. The best thing to do is talk to an architect about the specifics of your site and what they see as potentially beneficial or not and also discussing further the pros and cons of pre-fab vs. custom construction.

We are thrilled to be asked to consider this question. We would welcome a project like this, but we’d like to really stress the fact that good design is paramount. Pre-fab requires design: it is a planned operation that requires organization and coordination. Each piece has to be carefully designed ahead of assembly, the structure has to work and be engineered, the foundation has to be designed and coordinated to work with the factory built components. You still have to comply with the building and planning codes. Its a tricky and planned out operation, for that reason, there will be a lot design up front.

Design is a process: it starts with the very broad stroke concepts and problems, and, as decisions are made, information and detail is added. Before spending too much time on design, this preliminary estimate can be a tool that is used to determine the scope of work. There are often several elements to the scope that are removed or added depending on this budget.  Owners are often surprised by how much their new house or addition costs and that is one of many reasons why its important to get your contractor involved early to assist with this process so that costs and expectations can be made predictable. Hart Wright Architects has effectively massaged designs based on early ballpark estimates.

In addition to illustrating the potential price of a construction project, a preliminary budget is a part of the process of selecting a contractor, which is not based on the lowest estimate, but rather it is part of an interview exercise. If there are several rounds of work involving sub-contractors or material samples, the contractor will give the client a pre-construction agreement that is an hourly contract with a not to exceed a set number of hours, depending on project and client.

Because it is early in the process, the contractor does not have full information about the project. He or she uses past experience to determine an estimate. If the contractor and architect have worked together before, the contractor has a general idea of the level of finishes and detail the architect is likely to specify later in the process.  These early numbers fall within a reasonable range of values. The drawings the contractor works from are diagrammatic at most.  The format of the ballpark estimate itself varies. We’ve worked with several contractors each of whom spend different amounts of time and have different methodologies. Typically, the final product is a spreadsheet with a breakdown of construction industry standard categories. Some use a narrative format. They write out the scope of work as they understand it and list what they think is a price for the various elements of the scope. For example: bathroom remodel, new deck, driveway resurfacing, etc.  This method is owner friendly in that it gives the owner a way to compare the components and assess their value and as a result, control the budget.

Here is an example: (Please note we cannot publish the spreadsheet and information that is proprietary to the contractor, but you will see what a preliminary sketch drawing could look like)
This is a project for a new addition and kitchen remodel. After measuring, drawing and photographing the house, and working with the clients to develop a scope of work, Hart Wright Architects prepared a set of scaled drawings by hand. The dimensions, though rough, could give the contractor square footages. Also shown were walls removed and new walls added. The contractor made a visit to the house and identified any issues with the site and met the owners to get a sense of their expectations. Access to the site, parking, city guidelines for how construction is handled are all factors that could affect the schedule. In this case, the house was down a steep hill and on a narrow street. All of the debris would have to be removed from the site by hand and there was no room for a dumpster, so waste and recycling would have to be removed one truck at a time.

Note that the drawings that were used are diagrammatic at most, there are no structural engineering drawings, elevations, finish schedules, or lighting fixtures, to name a few. In the kitchen, the sink is shown moved, giving an idea of the rough plumbing involved. The linear footage of cabinetry is determined but our drawing did not call out what the material or style of the cabinets was or what the countertop would be. We described the cabinet style and gave a list of finishes and fixtures we typically use; a verbal specification that gives the contractor more information without us having to develop the plans to show it.

Once the contractor had the drawings and a sense of the site, perhaps he had shown the drawing to an electrician and a plumber; he’d gone through previous jobs and looked up numbers for various elements, and had thought about the timing and duration of what the project would be. Since the drawings were schematic and it was still early in the process, its easy to understand why these kinds of estimates are call “ballpark” and not formal bids. Once the contractor presented the number for this project, the owners revisited the scope and changed some things. Hart Wright Architects continued to develop the drawings. With the back and forth team effort, we got to the owner’s target budget.

This was a collaboration of us, the architect, and contractor Cardea Building Co. The owner had a very tight budget so Cardea brought us on board to do the design while they managed the project overall. Also known as “design build” this project was very economical.

In the same way that we have systems in our houses for electricity or plumbing, areas for cooking, areas for sleeping, etc., we need to expand and add a hierarchical system of how water is sourced and used. For example, we currently have water infrastructure that enables fresh clean water to come directly into our houses. We just take this for granted and this is our sole water supply. What if the standard for buildings was to have systems of rainwater catchment, greywater re-use, and on-site storage. There are technologies for all of these in various price ranges and scales, just as there are many different styles and functions of shower heads. The best solution is to have a net zero water home. Even so, there are varying degrees of how and what to build for a water conscious system in your home.

Storage
Collecting rainwater from the roof and patio is one thing, but storing it is another. We typically imagine the extensive excavation and installation of great big cisterns. A company called Raintech has a modular system that is stackable and can be used in any site condition and depth. The modules that hold water are structural, so it works to place them under the lawn or patio. Because they are modular there is no limit to how much or little water is stored and the units adapt to any shape, space or site restriction. Read more here.Greywater to Landscape
Greywater is the water that comes from showers, bathroom sinks and the washing machine. A couple of methods for reusing greywater would be to collect it, filter it and use it to flush the toilets. Another easy use is to put it out in the landscape as irrigation. The more complicated system would be to do both whereby the more fixtures that get collected the more complicated it is. Again, its a hierarchy, and depending on budget and needs different variations could be attained. One extremely simple method is to direct the water from the washing machine to the landscape. All that is needed is a pipe, the right plants, and detergent that plants won’t mind. Detergents have phosphates in them, but actually, phosphates are also fertilizers. Additionally, the washing machine sending water to the landscape would work well using the Epic Green Solutions Company’s sub-surface irrigation technology. It is a series of submerged chambers that both stores the water and irrigates in conjunction with a sand planting bed. Grass and plants typically grow well in sand when it doesn’t drain too quickly and the Epic system is designed for this. Read more here.

Runoff
There needs to be a shift in mindset about run off water as well. We used to design sites that shed the water. Studies have demonstrated that run off water is not only wasted water but it is contaminated and our storm and sewer systems have to respond to the influx. What if all sites were required to retain all of their run off? It is possible to have different combinations of systems that retain water, filter it and keep it. In undeveloped areas, water is absorbed by the soil and percolates into the aquifers. Rooftops and pavement have diverted  rainwater into channels and drains that immediately shove it off site. Los Angeles just passed an ordinance that requires developments to mitigate their rainwater from now on. Also known as L.I.D., Low Impact Development, studies have shown that this is not only the most cost effective way to deal with storm water, but it is also recharges the groundwater and promotes the use of ecological irrigation systems. You can read more about this here.

In our training as design professionals we study alignment, consistency and hierarchy of elements. These are the principles we use to make an organized floor plan or material palette.  This is an important form, but because of its lack of clarity it takes a long time to check over and fill out properly. The people working for the bureaucracy that issues it must have a more difficult time making sure it is correct also.

For specifics, find the key number on the image and read the corresponding note below.

1. Why does the form begin each element to be checked off and filled out with the letter C, not A?

2. This font is too small to read.

3. Kerning is too tight and does not match kerning in adjacent red text block even though the two blocks of red text grab your eye, and they don’t not align.

4. Some titles are in bold “all caps” and then some are in bold “title case”. It looks disorganized.

5. Items C through E should justify. Its very obviously crowded onto the bottom of this part of the form.

6. This one is confusing: they put box around the late fee rather than the due amount.

7. What is this line that says “fold” ? What about this dotted line just below with no instructions?

8.The address for mailing with a windowed envelope is upside down on the back of this form. When you stuff the envelope you have to turn it around and flip it over.

2. Modernist architects from Southern California, example: John Lautner Shaffer House, Los Angeles, CA from Hess, Alan. The Architecture of John Lautner. New York: Rizzoli, 1999. Find out more about this architect at http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/

3. California, beautiful landscape and plate tectonics. In the Carrizo Plain, the San Andreas Fault cuts across the land clearer than anywhere else. There are so many unique, beautiful, and interesting landscapes in this state. Collier, Michael. A Land in Motion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

4. Portuguese architects. Even before we went to Portugal, we had admired the culture and their modernist architects. Here are some examples of the work of Alvaro Siza: the Portuguese National Pavilion and the Serralves Museum in Lisbon.

Another favorite architect is Eduardo Souto de Moura. Mola, Francesc Zamora. Eduardo Souto de Moura Architect. Barcelona: Loft, 2009 p. 115.

5. Donald Judd. We recently visited Marfa, Texas. In 1979, Judd purchased 340 acres of what used to be Fort D.A. Russell. The buildings provide space for the work of a limited number of contemporary artists. This is The Arena, a former gymnasium for the soldiers.

One of the 15 untitled works in concrete by Donald Judd, 1980-84.

6. Andy Goldsworthy. A lot of the work we do is renovations. There is no better equivalent to renovating a building in the art world than the work of this artist who makes art from site specific found objects.

7. Saab 900. This was our car for 13 years. From the sound the doors made to the quirky round windshield, it made you aware of good design.

8. Volvo 1800 Coupe Wagon. What a dreamy car.

9. Hoover Dam. This beautiful engineering marvel is the symbol of the story of conquering the west and getting water to the desert. Learn this story with Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, 1986.

10. Meteor Crater, AZ. This made the list because it has been a large part of Eliza’s life. Her great grandfather, D. M. Barringer was the first person to say this formation was caused by a meteorite. Now the site is owned by her family’s company, The Barringer Crater Company. http://www.barringercrater.com/ Photo from http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/

11. Louis Kahn Exeter Academy Library. We recently visited this library for the first time and we are glad we did.

12. Seattle, WA Public Library, OMA/Rem Koolhas

13. New York: The High Line. Its about time a project like this was built. What a welcome bit of open space for the city.

14. 9 Delusions. This is a painting by Eliza’s teacher, Ana Guerra. It has an iridescent quality that didn’t make it to the photo.

• For more information visit: http://www.aiaeb.org/hometours.htm
• An article in the Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/07/HOVE1KH91N.DTL
• To see more photos of the house visit: http://www.hartwrightarchitects.com/projects/blackthorn/