With only two days left after today, beautiful details are surfacing.  The house is taking on a somewhat nautical feel, a mixed combination of natural and industrial (think vernacular meets steampunk), though no one planned it that way.  We have shark glass (aquarium acrylic) for the oculus, the rainscreen is made from purely reclaimed wood with tons of character, the terraces are retained by weathered wood resembling a floating dock, the hues of the interior match a turquoise beauty of the desert, colors not commonly matched.  It’s taking on a life of it’s own……….

Some days, it’s pretty incredible the amount of work that we can get accomplished in just one work day. Even on days like today when we’re shorthanded by half (congratulations to those of us who graduated today!), we still managed to get plenty of items crossed off our to-do lists.

Katie’s exterior cladding is catching up quickly with extra help from other students and staff members; she even powered through the heat in full-length clothing to cut down metal strips! Jeremy’s oculus is reaching the final stages of completion; it’s now clad, sealed, and properly roofed with its fancy acrylic skylight. We even stopped to play the old ‘how-many-students-can-you-fit-into-the-oculus’ game. (Hint: 8) Morgan prepped, primed, and painted all six of our doors on site with his ingenious door-painting method. Liz and Rachel both worked out the kitchen island, making sure that it fit perfectly into its place. We didn’t see or hear much from Hiroko and Atsushi, but the evidence of their dedication to our plastering continues to show up around the house. Check out the pictures below for the before-and-afters of today’s efforts.

We are working hard to get finished, but time is running short. Today we worked mostly on furthering progress on the interiors and began the rain screen for the exterior. Jeremy worked on his oculus, and Cortland poured our shower slab. See what we’ve been working on:

…Too bad we’ve only just begun! It’s starting to get exciting as the interiors come together and the berm gets completed.

Rachel rocks!

Since the roof team did such a good job on the roof, we decided to put them to work on the ceiling- which we figured was essentially the roof in reverse :) So far, so good. Guess all that work on the roof paid off!

"So... the instructions say the insulation goes the other way."

Progress on the kitchen continued as the concrete countertop was poured.

Nice and smooth. Good thing we had a whole floor to practice on!

And per Joel’s request…

Joel executing egress option 1

Today held a bittersweet moment. The roof (both of them) was completed! After many hours, hard labor, hot sun, and man time came to an end. The rest of the home continued on course closer to completion.

Chad and Scott placing the Aluminum panels onto the Trellis

The plaster is perfect

Translucent panels become more numerous by the day

Ready for the counter top pour

There she is!... All done!

Ryan and Liz working on the amazing kitchen cabinets.

Hoku and Caitlin installing the first 3Form panel.

Rachel working tirelessly working on the terraces.

Wohoo roof is almost done…!!

Chad and Morgan installing the roof eave boards.

Hiroko, The master plaster…!!!

Joel on the roof…!!

We figured it was probably past time that we go through the systems that make this house awesome and fill you in on how things are intended to work.   Our house is made up of 5 Major passive/efficient systems to heat and cool throughout the year, they are

1. The Berm

2. Straw Bale Wall

3. Rocket Stove

4. Double Roof

5. Night Flush Cooling

In order to use the earths energy to moderate our homes interior temperature we would idealy be more than 6 ft. in the ground.   The Berm was designed to mimique the earth 6 ft down by laying up 5 ft of soil next to our retaining wall then covering that soil with straw, cardboard, water proof membrane, gravel, and foam to insulate the earth below and covering all of that with another layer of soil.   No true berm is complete without a built in bread oven that is accessible just outside the kitchen doors.

Opposite the berm wall is the highly insulated straw bale wall which has been designed to cost effectively provide the needed insulation to allow for the heating and cooling systems to do their jobs without loosing energy from the home.   Local clays were gathered and used in constructing this wall.

This stove is designed to use all of the heat that is generated from burning small kindling throughout the day.   The exhaust heat is drawn through pipe in the clay bench which acts as a thermal mass absorbing the heat and letting it into the space for many hours after the stove has stopped burning.  The flame burns sideways as the system pulls the exhaust through hence the name Rocket Stove.