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