Steve Bosserman Persues Microhouse Concept to Promote Low Cost Building Technoloiges in USA
My Colleague Steve Bosserman reports on a Treehugger posting about an article entitled, “A Resort to Go,” published on the same date in the New York Times. It focuses on what are called “Park Homes,” which are a more permanent alternative to mobile homes. These types of buildings are built at manufacturing operations and are shipped to customers for installation. Steve believes the market opportunity for developing a green business in this growing sector is particularly ripe, consider the movement towards smaller homes and more ecological accountability in terms of the impact of individual and family consumption habits on the environment. There are numerous issues surrounding overall design concepts, choice of construction materials, energy efficiency, environmental sensitivity, and assembly quality. All this leads one to conclude that there is considerable room for improvement as well as opportunity for the development of business constructing modular houses.
Steve has been busy building a wiki at http://www.worknets
A more refined concept based on the modular building systems that underlie mobile homes is what are called modular homes that usesthe Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria as developed by the US Green Building Council is a much-needed alternative to existing Park Home’s Says Steve. Manufacturing of these homes, designed as standardized modules, could be distributed close to the point of use by customers, using a franchise model. This conforms quite well to the theme of localization—closing the gap between the point of production and the point of utilization.
Steve feels it is important to see housing, agriculture, and renewable energy in the context of a vast global resource network interacting within a local community base—the four quadrants of the localization framework. Possibly we could visualize an “integrated design concept for complete housing units that combine living space with a fresh-food greenhouse, off-the-grid energy generation, and water and waste management systems into one.” The architectural designs can originate from resources anywhere in the world, the specifications and simple tooling kits can be forwarded to distributed manufacturing and installation facilities serving localized markets both with materials and finished units. The response by customers / distributors / manufacturers / installers / architects will keep the concepts continually challenged for improvements and the designs refreshed. This may be a good opportunity to experiment with an open learning system that will provide value on multiple levels, actively engage people in making a difference, and move us forward in putting a different economic system in place that encourages contribution and provides satisfaction for having done so.
