Affordable Green Housing For Flood-prone Regions

Way down yonder in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a few blocks east of the Industrial Canal that links the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, something wonderful happened yesterday. Where multiple breaches along the levees of the Industrial Canal and the Intracoastal Waterway resulted in devastating flooding and damage in the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a public unveiling, ribbon cutting ceremony and celebration of another completed house in New Orleans. But Sugar, this ain’t no ordinary house …………

The FLOAT House is a new kind of house, one that can sustain its own water and power needs; a house that can survive the floodwaters generated by a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina; and a house that can be manufactured cheaply enough to function as low-income housing.

Morphosis Architects, under the direction of architect and UCLA Professor Thom Mayne, has completed the first floating house permitted in the United States for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans. The FLOAT House is a new model for flood-safe, affordable and sustainable housing that is designed to float securely with rising water levels.

Mayne led a team from Morphosis Architects and graduate students from UCLA Architecture and Urban Design in this innovative housing project to help with the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina. The concept emerged from a study of the flooding record, social and cultural history of the city, and the ecology of the Mississippi Delta.

Like the traditional New Orleans “shotgun” house, the FLOAT House sits on a raised four-foot (1.2 m), base, preserving the community’s vital front porch culture and facilitating accessibility for elderly and disabled residents. However in the event of flooding, the base of this house – reconceived as a chassis — acts as a raft, allowing the house to rise vertically on guide posts, securely floating up to twelve feet (3.6 m), as water levels rise. While not designed for occupants to remain in the home during a hurricane, this innovative structure aims to minimize catastrophic damage and preserve the homeowner’s investment in their property. This approach also allows for the early return of occupants in the aftermath of a hurricane or flood. Designed in response to Ninth Ward residents’ specific needs, the FLOAT House serves as a scalable prototype that can be mass-produced and adapted to the needs of communities world-wide facing similar challenges, like the Phillippines at this very moment.
This high-performance “chassis” is a prefabricated module, made from polystyrene foam coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete, which hosts all of the essential equipment to supply power, water and fresh air. The chassis is engineered to support a range of home configurations. The chassis was designed and built by Morphosis Architects and UCLA graduate students on the UCLA campus. In July 2009 the chassis was transported to New Orleans where prefabricated modules designed by the group were assembled on-site.

While the Morphosis floating house is the first to be permitted in the United States, the technology was developed and is in use in the Netherlands where architects and developers are working to address an increased demand for housing in the face of rising sea levels associated with climate change.

On track for a LEED Platinum Rating, the state-of-the-art home uses high-performance systems, energy efficient appliances, and prefabrication methods to produce an affordable, sustainable house that generates its own power, minimizes resource consumption, and collects its own water:

• Solar Power Generation: The roof supports solar panels that generate all of the house’s power, resulting in net-zero annual energy consumption. The chassis incorporates electrical systems to store and convert solar power for daily use, and to give back to the electrical grid during the temperate fall and spring months.
• Rainwater Collection: The sloped concave roof collects rainwater,20and funnels it to cisterns housed in the chassis, where it is filtered and stored for daily use.
• Efficient Systems—including low-flow plumbing fixtures, low-energy appliances, high performance windows, and highly insulated SIPs (Structural Insulated Panel) walls and roof—minimize water and power consumption, and lower the lifecycle cost for the home owner.
• High-grade energy efficient kitchen, appliances and fixtures maximize durability and reduce the need for replacement.
• Geothermal Heating and Cooling: A geothermal mechanical system heats and cools the air via a ground source heat pump, which naturally conditions the air, minimizing the energy required to cool the house in the harsh summer months and heat it in winter.

The houses could sell move-in ready for around $150,000 not bad for all the sustainability that comes with it. I just don’t know about $150k being considered ‘low income’. Anyway, for an illustrated parts diagram, go to FLOAT House

Brad Pitt founded Make It Right in 2007 to help the Lower 9th Ward residents who lost their homes during Katrina. With emphasis on building stronger, safer and more energy efficient housing, more than a dozen homes have been completed – with families moved in – on the site, and another 20 are under construction. Plans call for 50 homes on the site by December and 150 by the end of next year.

I’m just lovin’ it ….. as the green future unfolds!

The Forests of the Earth are the lungs of the planet.  Today we need them more
than ever to breath in and absorb the excess emissions of carbon dioxide.

As CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising, the forests of the world are falling.
20,000 square miles, the size of W. Virginia are lost every year due to
deforestation.  Which accounts for a forth of all excess green house emissions.

We need to reverse the cycle.  To replace the worlds disappearing forests, we
need to replant an area twice the size of Manhattan every single day.  Today’s
re-forestation methods are way too slow and labor intensive according to some
environmentalists.  An experienced forester can barely plant a couple of hundred
saplings a day.

An Idea by Mark Hodges has emerged that will boost the planting rate by 1,000
times.  The idea is to produce millions of canisters, little aerodynamic bombs
that have a seedling in them and then delivered in large numbers by aircraft.
This will cost effectively re-forest large areas of land in a short period of
time.

The mass planting of trees from the air, just might regrow our forests quickly to
gain ground.

To turn this idea into reality, a special team from Discovery will conduct
experiments to see if global re-forestation from the air is feasible.  Throwing
anything from a plane creates really tricky physics.

The first test site will be the Mississippi Delta, off shore from New Orleans.  This
area has a history of hurricanes, tropical storms, etc. Over 320 million trees were
destroyed or poisoned to death by salt water due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

As it decomposes, this dead forest will release 105 million metric tons of stored
carbon into the atmosphere.  As much as all the forest in the U.S. will have stored
in a year.

Mangrove trees need to be planted to slow storm surge from hurricane, give a
natural barrier to the inland and reduce CO2 level as well.  In ten years, the
mangrove trees will become a forest.  Mangrove trees absorb and store greenhouse
gases or commonly known as air scrubbers.

In order to re-forest 10 acres, it will take 20,000 canisters.  They gather folks
to assist in making the canisters which are made of wax, cheese cloth, soil and
seeds with red ribbons as tails (like a kite).  Using a hay net that hangs below a
helicopter, is loaded with 1300 canisters.  They deliver the canisters, get
the result needed and now have to wait three months to see if the seedlings are
growing.

They still have a few bugs to work out due to the seedlings not taking root.  But
they now have a viable way of doing re-forestation.    Cool idea, eh?

Whew!  Hurricane Gustav is now a tropical storm and we believe we got lucky.
We are receiving rain and winds that are gusting no more than 30 mph.
And to top that, Gustav has decided to take a more northerly route through
Louisiana before getting to Texas.

We may get heavier rain throughout the day as movement of the storm continues.
The storm is now covering the length of the Texas and Louisiana border.

I can handle the rain, wind and being on the west side of a hurricane certainly
has its benefits. For those of you who have never been through a hurricane,
the east side is what we call the “dirty side”.  It has the heaviest rain and
wind along with creating tornados like you cannot imagine.  When the storm
is moving through your area, it can take up to 12 to 16 hours of sustained or
continuous wind at the high speeds.  Of course, the more land it hits, the
slower or downgraded it becomes.  The west side of the storm is called the
“clean” side which gives less rain and wind.

The damage in Louisiana was not as extensive as katrina but pretty bad.
However, folks will be going back to their homes probably starting tomorrow
to assess the damage.  Thank goodness, I have not heard of any deaths here
or in Lousiana from the storm.

Thanks to all who have come by and lended support and humor!  I still have
electricity and the day is young.  Now to watch the next parade of hurricanes
that are stretched out across the Atlantic.

Greensburg is in repeats right now so there are no new updates for you
today. Planet Green is taking a holiday along with the rest of us!

Hurricane Gustav is projected in a beeline right for me. So, forgive me
if this is too short and sweet as I need to prepare for the onslaught of
10 inches of rain and high winds starting late tonight and running through
Thursday.

Battening down the hatches, mates, we are in for a big blow but not as bad
as the Gulf Coast, mainly Louisiana, is fixin to feel.

Lessons were learned from Katrina. I will tell you this much, there have
been massive evacuation efforts going on over the weekend. Nursing homes
here in East Texas have gained anywhere from 60 to 100 extra patients.
Hospitals here are wall to wall gurneys. Prisons are being evacuated as well.
Let’s just say that all roads out of major cities have become one way and
folks are taking heed to leave. All Hotels/Motels are booked solid, We are
all hunkerin down cause there is no where else to go.

I will keep you updated as the week continues with hopes of keeping electricity
throughout. LOL, LOL, LOL…. I crack me up!