Local Project Nears Completion

Autumn blows into New England and construction enters its final stages at a Colrain, MA residence to allow the family to move in before the winter holidays arrive.

The pictures below reflect the homeowners' magical property and the attention to detail given to the site and the structure itself.

Fall foliage abounds on the lush, rolling landscape

Masons handcraft a beautiful stone retaining wall

Notice the gentle curve of the kitchen roof and bow window

The warm cedar shingles are aglow in the afternoon sunshine

The diamond cut patterning is decorative and eye-catching

Does anyone recognize this kitchen skylight in its finished form?

(It appeared in a previous blog entry surrounded only by polyurethane

spray foam and dense pack cellulose insulation!)

The beautiful detailing of the three season porch ceiling

This newly renovated home has gorgeous vistas and is filled with natural light



Passive House Design

This New York Times article documents one family's dedication to long-term energy conservation as the husband and wife homeowners meticulously design and construct their new home to Passive House Institute-U.S. standards.

Green Cartoons

Check out these cartoons from the 1980's -- they are a peek into our "green" cartoon history!

Breaking News of Summer 2010

We are celebrating the energy efficiency successes of the homes at the Wisdom Way Solar Village located in Greenfield, MA.  The first 6 homes in the Wisdom Way Solar Village have been awarded LEED Platinum, the highest designation, by the U.S. Green Building Council.  To read more, please visit Rural Development Inc. and read on about the positive news!

Major Renovations & Additions Pilot Program

The Center for Ecological Technology paid a visit to one of our residential projects to inspect the insulation installed in the home's floors, walls, and ceilings. The owners are on track for receiving financial incentives through a program sponsored by a local utility company due to the undertaking of extensive energy efficiency measures.

Matt Turcotte of CET confirms actual window
dimensions with those stated on the building plans

Spray foam insulation (orange) and dense

pack cellulose insulation (gray) installed

in the kitchen ceiling around the collar ties

and skylight

SolarFest 2010

Check out this weekend's SolarFest -- a local alternative energy event. 

SolarFest, Inc., a nonprofit organization, is hosting its annual renewable energy and arts fesitival at Forget-Me-Not Farm in Tinmouth, VT on July 16-17-18. 

SolarFest 2010 promises a little something for everyone.  There is family fun for all including felting, crafting ornaments from clay, and parachute games, as well as an extensive offering of workshops covering everything from photovoltaics 101 to Advanced Solar Thermal.

Solar Thermal or PV?

This Forbes article discusses the future of solar thermal power versus photovoltaics as key players in the energy production industry. 

Green Financial Incentives 2010

To keep abreast of current financial incentives for energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technology, peruse the sites Energy Star, Mother Nature Network, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Deepwater Horizon Explosion

We are all familiar with the heartbreaking story of the Gulf oil spill, the largest in U.S. history.  The far-reaching impacts of this event are as yet unknown, but The Daily Green has suggestions for how

we can help!

Make yours like mine

Part of the reward of our job is seeing our drawings come to life. A recent example is a remodel project here in Franklin County.

Our Drawings:


The house under construction:

Best of the Valley

Congratulations to the Northampton Brewery for winning the Valley Advocate's "Best of the Valley" award for best Outdoor Dining!

(We'll take a bit of reflected glory.)

Spring Time

Spring is well underway in Colrain. Behind the Grange we frequently see foxes in the brush on the hillside. Today Bill spotted some other small movements accompanying a fox. If you look closely you can see four very well camouflaged kits playing on the hillside under the watchful eye of their mother. And as any mother of four would be, she seems a bit harried. We look forward to some entertaining distractions out the window as we watch these little guys grow.

Hot Numbers for Heat Loss

Reducing energy consumption is a key interest of ours and our clients.  Our latest exciting heat loss calculation, for a local 2800 SF residence, shows that the home will be using less than 600 gallons of propane gas per year translating roughly into annual heating bills of less than $1,600 per year!

With homes currently consuming approximately 20% of the energy consumed in the U.S. and generating about 20% of the CO2 emissions in the U.S., we are very interested in designing energy-efficient houses.  The benefits of a high-performing home are clear: the more airtight, better sealed, and well-insulated it is, and the lower the u-values of its fenestration, the less energy and fewer greenbacks it consumes.

In the northeast, about 60% of a home's energy consumption is due to heating, so we are focused on heat loss calculations which tell us a lot of information, but in particular what the yearly heat loss is for a home.  Once we've have a baseline for annual heat loss, we can then determine which measures can be taken to further reduce heat loss and energy consumption in the home, while preserving and enhancing the client's design goals.

As the aforementioned residential project is still in progress, there may be additional opportunities to further reduce the energy consumption and carbon footprint of the home.  We will be sure to post updated results!

Bridge of Flowers Kiosk

The first signs of Spring are beginning to show in Colrain; ladybugs at the windows and smoke from the sugar houses. And with dreams of Spring it seems like a good time to post some pictures of the new kiosk at the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls which ADI alum Grey Marchese and Bill completed last Spring. The project was a collaboration of many local artists, craftspeople and the freshmen/sopomore carpentry class at Franklin County Technical School, all pitching in to make the kiosk a reality. Bob Compton of Rising Sun Forge created the "rails" of the canopy meant to echo the trolley tracks which once ran down the bridge. Jay Heilman and Josh Hoffman of Heilman Building put in some work along with Rob Mitchell Excavating, Dawn Kazokas, Graves Concrete and Erna C. Herzig all pitched in as well.

Check out the article in Design New England which featured the project here.

Soon enough we'll be sitting by the Bridge enjoying some warm weather and all the flowers.

Photo credit: Grey Marchese

Greening the Valley Exhibit Opening tonight

The "Greening The Valley: Sustainable Architecture in the Pioneer Valley" exhibit opens this evening at the University Gallery at Umass. A couple of ADI projects will be in the exhibit as well as other projects from around the area.
We'll see you there!

Wisdom Way Documentary

Catherine Stryker of Cat's Eye Productions has posted excepts from her documentary film about Wisdom Way Solar Village on Youtube for all to enjoy. There are four clips, to watch the whole thing click over to Amherst Community Television.

Wisdom Way on the blogs

Susan Kraemer has written up a nice piece on Wisdom Way over on Home Design Find using some of Doug Mason's photos from our Flickr account. The article does an excellent job of summarizing the project and the remarkable prospect of a $300 annual energy bill.

(A side note: those last 2 photos in the piece are from Katywil, I'll have to make my Flickr tags a bit more explicit. Also remarkable is getting the Google alerts and seeing this article re-blogged on other sites, one of them a luxury real estate blog. The internet is a remarkable, and strange, thing.)

Wisdom Way Data

Some great reading from Robb Aldrich of Steven Winter Associates on the performance of the units at Wisdom Way.

SWA Report on WWSV Heating Systems

Unbuilt Projects - Leverett house

For whatever reason, sometimes a project or a particular design is never realized. From time to time we'll revisit some of these and share them.

This particular home was designed for a local entrepreneur for a hilltop in Leverett, MA. There were two distinct designs presented, both with special considerations of views and solar orientation.