Midwestern homes tend to hew to the cookie-cutter format more than most; that's why this design presented unique challenges. Construction costs are lower and land is easier to come by, but integrating the design into the context of an otherwise drab neighborhood was a key goal.
SIZE: 3,000 square feet
BEDS/BATHS: 3 bedrooms, 4 baths
COST: $200,000 to $400,000, depending on configuration
Every architect remembers his first client. Tonino Vicari’s was the director of recycling in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “We couldn’t just pay lip service to the green movement,” he recalls. “Our design had to include real energy-saving features.” Vicari positioned the home to reduce the so-called heat load from direct sunlight, used salvaged wood from a nearby barn for the garage, and installed radiant-heat floors to reduce winter energy costs by two-thirds. Since then, Vicari’s firm has gained a reputation for smart, eco-conscious houses. Now, he says, sustainability is “business as usual.”
Building in a landscape as diverse as the Midwest has its challenges, so Vicari created his Men’s Health Living home to fit with any setting, from suburbs to rolling prairies. “I envision owners who like to entertain, who like to be healthy and in shape,” he says. “So I designed the inside to reflect that lifestyle.”
Leave wood where it belongs
Bamboo millwork is the only wood used in the home Tonino Vicari designed. The reedlike wood grows at a rate of 20 feet per year, making it the most renewable of fibers. The rest of the structure, from framing to floors, is made of concrete, stone, steel, and glass—all durable, recyclable construction materials that sidestep the lumber drain of the average home. (More than 40 percent of the 4 billion trees harvested in the United States and Canada go to the housing industry, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.) The sturdy construction also boosts strength and longevity. “This house will last three times longer than a wood-frame building,” says Vicari.
Give guests a home, too
The semidetached garage features flexible living space above it—the perfect location for a quiet, quasi-remote office or a private guest suite.
Put the sun to work
The home’s northern facade features fewer windows, to reduce the amount of heat the house collects during the summer, when the sun is high in the sky. The south-facing facade selectively allows light through its solar-glazed windows—more during the winter, when the sun stays low on the southern horizon, to offset the cost of heating the home. The south-facing windows also capture energy by way of photovoltaic cells, to further defray electricity costs. On the third floor, Vicari used a new type of photovoltaic glass from Carvist (carvist.net/photoglass.php). Because it’s tinted, he was able to open the bedrooms to the outside without exposing residents to the world. All the windows in the house are triple-pane, which insulate better than standard double-pane glass in both cold and hot weather.
Add exterior touches
Outdoor accent lighting can dramatically improve the look of a home and help deter burglars. But incandescent lighting jacks up energy costs. Tonino chose LED fixtures from IOLighting (iolighting.com). LEDs use 90 percent less energy and last 50 times longer than incandescent bulbs. They’re even 20 percent more efficient than compact fluorescent bulbs.
Boost your home’s IQ
Bill Gates dropped millions of dollars building a brain into his Redmond, Washington, home, where custom computer systems monitor everything from energy usage to lighting. “Today, you can do all that with a simple PC,” says Vicari. In this design, Vicari has connected the appliances, lighting, and electronics to a central monitoring system that lets the homeowner know how much energy is being used where, and suggests ways to cut back. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the average house wastes half of its total electrical consumption annually.
Reuse rainwater
The folded roof on Tonino’s home funnels rainwater into a central collection system, where it’s filtered and stored in the house as drinking water, pool water, and irrigation for the grass and plants. Tonino says the system could save from 10,000 to 80,000 gallons of water each year, depending on the home’s location. “In most midwestern regions, the water you collect is cleaner than the well water, and usually much cleaner than tap water,” says Vicari.
Emphasize open spaces
Tonino uses lighting, furniture, and ambience to separate rooms from one another—instead of adding walls that would break up the expansive feel of the home. The open floor plan makes the space seem larger than it really is.
Tailor the layout to the lifestyle
Smart design anticipates how residents will use a home. For example, the second-floor entertainment room has fewer windows than other areas. Less light increases privacy and improves the viewing experience for residents using the entertainment center.
Check out the urban sanctuary
An urban oasis doesn't come cheap. The average single-family home in Brooklyn Heights, a choice outer-borough neighborhood of New York City, is worth $2.5 million, for example. So we asked for a smart design that would harness the privacy, efficiency, and flexibility of a row home.
SIZE: 3,000 square feet
BEDS/BATHS: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, plus a 1-bedroom, 1-bath rental unit
COST: $600,000 plus lot
Brendan Coburn’s Men’s Health Living dream home doesn’t just look great on paper. “I built this same house for myself 5 years ago,” he says. “But those 5 years taught me a lot—this plan shows what I’d change.” Coburn’s Brooklyn row house is a natural fit for him. The architect, who started his eponymous firm in 1995, grew up in another townhouse nearby, in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood. “Row homes really are an incredible type of building,” he says. “They’re easy to work with, and they’re quite gracious places to live.” They’re also naturally energy efficient. “A row house is losing energy only through its two narrow facades,” Coburn says. “Unless it’s on the end of a block, it’s not losing energy on the sides.”
Coburn’s firm, which has designed for Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Buscemi, and other celebs, has a reputation for adding warm touches to more modern spaces, and for drawing out the character of the existing neighborhood in an all-new design. That knack for bridging the modern with the classic made Coburn an ideal firm to reinterpret the modern row house.
“One of the best parts of city life is that we live in smaller houses and smaller spaces,” he says. “That means a huge savings in both energy and construction costs.”
Become a landlord
Coburn added a rental apartment on the ground floor to keep the rest of the house contiguous. It could rent for between $1,700 and $2,500 a month at current market prices in Brooklyn—or 30 to 50 percent of the owner’s monthly mortgage payment, Coburn estimates. The tenant unit is connected to the house by a staircase with a secure door, so the homeowners can reclaim the space as their family grows.
Build a better skylight
Since row houses tend to be quite narrow—widths range from 12 to 20 feet—it’s important to capture any available light. “It’s a huge thing—that’s what gets you through the winter,” says Coburn. His team added a skylight above the center stairwell. Clear stair landings, made of tempered glass, allow the light to filter through to lower levels. On warm days, opening the skylight creates a convection cooling effect—cooler air is pulled through the windows on the first floor, and hot air is pushed out through the skylight.
Add shade without suffocating
In the summer, Coburn wanted to block direct sunlight but let the breeze into the home. His solution: a so-called brise-soleil, a metal exterior shading system popular in commercial building design. The metal slats block the sun but let the breeze though, and also add a modern touch to the home’s exterior. “It will make a huge difference in the summer,” Coburn says.
Bring the outdoors in
Most historic townhouses are built with heavy brick, making it difficult to integrate large windows without structurally reinforcing the building. The rear facade provides the lone opportunity for expansive views, especially in dense neighborhoods with privacy concerns. Here, Coburn used steel I-beams to support the rear facade, which allowed him to open up the back wall with thermally insulated glass. “It really opens you up to the garden,” he says, “which creates a connection to the natural world.”
Create spaces, not cells
Big, long rooms are inefficient in townhouses, says Coburn. “It’s more important to have more rooms than big rooms,” he says. In this narrow floor plan, each level has at least two rooms. He used the irregularly shaped spaces near the stairwell for offices or nurseries. But the design is flexible—rooms can be used for different purposes, or linked to create larger bedrooms.
Minimize construction costs
The cost of skilled labor has skyrocketed, especially in big cities. So the fixtures in Coburn’s home—door frames, hardware, cabinets—are kept uniform to control construction and labor costs. “The angles are straight and plumb, and I’ve avoided complicated assemblies of materials that local tradesmen are not familiar with,” he says. “Keeping the design simple and flexible makes the house easier to build.”
Cut corners smartly
Complicated systems also add cost. So Coburn limited the number of bathrooms to one per floor, stacking them one above the other to reduce the footage of piping. And for a house this size, wiring alone can top $40,000. But Coburn reduced the number of electrical outlets, removed the entire phone system, and avoided unnecessary Ethernet jacks and other pricey add-ons. This cut costs by $150 per switch or outlet, for an overall savings of more than $6,000.
Add green to your roof
Homes lose heat the same way humans do: through the head. That’s why Coburn used a sod roof to act as a natural, nonchemical form of insulation. He also installed a rainwater collection system on the roof, which funnels water through inexpensive PVC piping to the garden below. “In addition, the roof will retain some rainwater until it evaporates,” says Coburn, “taking some load off the municipal sewer system and cutting down on the energy used to treat storm and wastewater.”
Find your lot for life
Ferreting out a vacant city lot—or even a dilapidated house to tear down—for a project like Coburn’s can be a slog. “You have to keep your eyes and your mind open,” says Susan Wachter, Ph.D., a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania. You also have to . . .
Be creative
Lots don’t have to be dirt and stones. Parking lots, old stores, and shuttered municipal facilities can all be repurposed. The key is finding a lot or building that has fallen behind the rest of the area. If location is your top priority, cruise your desired neighborhood for properties in disrepair, says John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. Then find the owners through the county’s recorder of deeds and ask whether they’d consider selling.
Look local
Local real-estate agents and housing Web sites can help with your search. The blog Brownstoner.com, for instance, covers Brooklyn real estate, logging many of the 10,000 open parcels in the borough. “Handyman’s special” listings on Craigslist.org can also provide leads on lots with bulldozer-bound houses. And cities hold tax-forfeited and foreclosure auctions that can yield a bargain if exact location is less important. We asked regional experts to help us find examples of prime land ready for a new house, and ranked each area in two categories: difficulty of finding a lot, and quality of the average available lot. Then we looked for actual lots. Here’s what we found.
Difficulty: X Quality: +
Brooklyn
xxxxx +++
Much of Brooklyn has historic protection, leaving few desirable lots or demolition-worthy homes. We found a lot in an upscale section for $545,000. But in hard-to-reach and less-desirable neighborhoods, 2,000-square-foot lots go for about $200,000.
Denver
xx +++
Denver’s old-city district, the Highlands, is packed with dated bungalows many new homeowners are tearing down. We found a teardown on a 6,250-square-foot lot for $360,000; demolition costs would add another $10,000.
Houston
xx ++++
We found a 10,000-square-foot lot on the first highway loop around Houston in Bellaire, another area with older homes turning over into new developments. Cost: $167,000.
Los Angeles
xxxxx ++++
We found a 5,600-square-foot lot in the city’s historic Hermona district, a restful area just outside the chaos of downtown. The $300,000 price tag includes permits for a 1,500-square-foot house.
Philadelphia
xx ++
There are few desirable places to build in Center City—all the action is to the north. We found a 17-foot-wide lot for $60,000 in Roxborough, a neighborhood near young, hip Manayunk.
Phoenix
xxx +++++
We found a 7,500-square-foot lot just north of downtown, in a neighborhood marked by citrus trees and older housing stock ready to be torn down. Cost: $250,000.
—MATT ALLYN
Check out the modern pavilion
Southern California homes are often constructed as compounds, walled complexes that feel more like solitary confinement than sanctuaries. The rub: How can homeowners shield themselves against the brutal sunlight, and the prying eyes of passerby, without feeling panned in?
SIZE: 3,200 square feet
BEDS/BATHS: 2 or 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
COST: $600,000 to $800,000
Summer temperatures in Los Angeles average 85°F, which means good shade can make or break a home. That’s why this striking design—it’s a simple, solid box, set on a fishbowl of a ground floor—is so clever. The shade provided by the windowless second floor cuts temperatures inside by as much as 10 degrees, says Zoltan Pali, who runs the Los Angeles firm Studio Pali Fekete with partner Judit M. Fekete. Meanwhile, vents, skylights, and windows in the ceiling bring in softer, reflective light and improve ventilation.
“It’s like living under the shade of a tree,” says Pali. Downstairs, he and Fekete—known for their overhaul of L.A.’s Greek Theater and their work on the new James Hotel—created an exposed structure, shielded from the street by a concrete fence and smart but organic privacy features.
Build a buffer from the outside
In front of this house is a small grove of trees planted in a groomed, decomposed granite field. This creates a small parklike area for passersby and gives the owners a low-maintenance front yard that increases privacy—especially important considering that the entire first floor is exposed. The entry courtyard features a small fountain, which cancels out any remaining street noise. The rear yard is a softer, planted, roll-in-the-grass hangout space.
Design for flexibility
The simple square shape of the floor plan makes it easy for residents to reconfigure rooms—connecting the living room to the kitchen, the dining room to the family room, and so on. Staircases and circulation spaces break up the largely open-plan interior. Since the house is essentially a cube, the rooms are flexible and can be shifted according to the sunlight exposures. An adjacent room on the ground floor can serve as a home office, media room, or playroom.
Stiff-arm direct sunlight . . .
The solid exterior on the second floor is clad in a white reflective material, adding to the sun-shielding effect. The walls insulate the second story, which features a glass floor that helps brighten the space from below.
. . . but let in reflected light
The no-windows effect might look startling from the outside, but inside, the second-floor rooms are quite bright. Each room features a 4-by-10-foot window in the ceiling. But not just any window—the glass is infused with a white ceramic “frit” (oldcastleglass.com), or screen, that diffuses direct sunlight before it enters the building. A large circular skylight in the center of each room helps dissipate heat and provides another source of light. “It’s really a considerable amount of daylight—much more than the standard single-hung window would afford,” says Studio Pali Fekete architect Greg Fischer.
Keep air flowing
The cross-configuration of the corridors and stairs helps draw air from the open downstairs section up and through the private spaces above. “You really wouldn’t need much air-conditioning,” says Pali.
Cut down on shipping and handling
Like most urban areas, Southern California suffers from a dearth of skilled labor. The home’s simple layout means it’s quicker to build. And the geometry of the house—it measures 40 feet by 40 feet—means it could be prefabricated in 10-foot sections and shipped via a flatbed truck or shipping container.
Build this home!
Studio Pali Fekete enjoyed creating their Men’s Health Living dream home so much, they’re now seeking out a parcel of land on which to build it. Interested? E-mail them at dafna@spfa.com.
Department: MH LIVING - FEATURE / Author: BEAN / Editor: PHILLIPS / MH DEC07/ Page PAGE 9 / File: FEAT1207 PERFECT HOME / Distribution:10/30/07
Create your own virtual dream house
Tonino Vicari used 3D Studio Max, a $4,000 computer program, to create the high-end renderings you see here. But you can experiment with a similar program—for free. Visit google.com/sketchup to download SketchUp, and wade through a few of the tutorials. Then, once you get the hang of it . . .
1. Build your foundation
It’s not hard to draw your dream house from scratch. But it’s even easier to import a picture of one you like and ask SketchUp to turn it into a 3-D model. The program’s perspective tools are very powerful, even skewing door and window frames slightly to bring the picture to life.
2. Upgrade your digital palette
A paint-bucket tool applies textures, or skins, to shapes you’ve created in the layout. This adds depth and detail to your renderings. You can use the stock textures or download additional ones from imageafter.com, which features 17,000 different ceilings, walls, floors, fabrics, roofs, and outdoor elements. Another option: Convert photographs of real-world textures into virtual skins.
3. Go furniture shopping
SketchUp allows you to drag items from 3-D libraries—think clip art—to help flesh out your renderings. The stock objects grow old quickly, so upgrade by downloading the SketchUp Bonus Packs (sketchup.google.com/bonuspacks.html). Then augment your collection by searching for “CAD symbols” at Web sites such as kohler.com, knoll.com, steelcase.com, hermanmiller.com, wolfrange.com, subzero.com, and monogram.com. These furniture and fixture manufacturers offer free, downloadable 3-D packs for their popular products to encourage architects to use them in professional renderings (and convince homeowners to follow through on the vision).
4. Curb your enthusiasm
“SketchUp is a good program for understanding how renderings are created or for conceptualizing simple projects, but try to keep it exploratory,” advises Vicari. “I can’t tell you how many houses I’ve seen that the residents have clearly designed themselves—they always end up kind of Frankensteinish. It’s not as easy as building a deck.” If you’re serious about bringing your creation to life, take your plan to an architect and ask him to base his design on yours.
—KYLE WESTERN