New Arkansas Plat House - floor deck underway

This is the first carpentry step in framing the house. Floor deck goes on top of the foundation, and they you are ready to start on the walls. Then it will really start to look like a Plat House!

The builder is using truss joists, or I-Joists, which is good. The Plat House has an 18ft span for the main floor which is pushing it for regular lumber. The I-Joists can be made stiffer, and the floor less bouncy.

Remember the Plat House comes in both 2bedroom and 3bedroom configurations.

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New Arkansas Plat House is in the ground!

We are really looking forward to tracking the construction of three Plat House Projects this spring. The first one out of the gate is a new Plat House in Arkansas.

The footers have been dug, rebar placed, and the men in galoshes are pouring the concrete. It is a good day to commence a Plat House!

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Vermont Plat House at sunset

Just sharing a nice photo with you all:

courtesy of the Vermont Plat House owner - thank you!

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Presenting our Research into Swedish Housing, continuing

Back in September 2012 Scott Hedges and I presented a summary of our research into Swedish building techniques at the Fall conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. That conference was focused on off-site construction. Part of the fall-out from that conference was an invitation to present at another conference, this time organized by Pennsylvania State University's Pennsylvania Housing Research Center and held towards the end of February 2013 in Allentown, PA, and at a Conference on Pre-Fab building in New Zealand in March 2013.

PHRC organizes several conferences each year, notably on Land Development and Housing. These conferences are attended by Developers and Builders, both coming to present their work and to hear about the work of others. This year PHRC for the first time held a conference on Residential Design & Construction which is where our research was presented. The subject matter was broad on all manner of research.

The conferences on Housing and Land Development were held concurrently at the same venue, and there was some mixing of the groups who were free to attend talks in the other events. And these events are annual, so the same kind of gathering will take place next year as well.

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Extensive Plat House mod's continue

Last month we posted the floor plan of an extensively modified Plat House that was shipping out to a customer in Hawaii. Today we have an equally modified Plat House going out to a customer in Oregon.

While this one also takes off from the 3 bedroom version of the Plat House, the big transformation here is in the living areas, more so than the bedrooms.

Its looking like these two may go under construction at the same time. That would be fun!

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Building High Performance Walls, Working with stone wool

I came across a great series of videos on YouTube from a Swedish catalog house builder showing the insulation steps in completing their walls. This catalog house builder happens to work on site, not in a factory, so its particularly useful for American builders trying a Layered Nordic Wall system like USA New Wall building it on site.

This first video shows the primary wall cavity being insulated. Note how easily the stone wool is cut and handled, and how it friction fits into place without stapling. See that the insulation can be easily slid vertically to fit into concealed areas, such as behind the ledger for second floor joists as in Swedish Platform Framing.

Now in this second video they will be installing the horizontal furring, which in the USA New Wall forms the wiring chase. The astute reader will say "Hey, where is their vapor control layer? They are putting up the furring without it?" If so, good observation. The reason is that this manufacturer builds their wall a little bit differently. This first layer of horizontal furring is mainly to create a thermal break for the studs. After they insulate this layer of furring they will go over this with a vapor control membrane, and then a second layer of vertical furring that forms their wiring space.

This is actually a very effective system, because this second layer of furring is offset from the studs breaking the remaining thermal bridges where the first furring rests across the studs. They get a complete thermal break just like you do with continuous exterior insulation, but none of the complications with window frames and flashing details. Watch them do this in the next video. You'll see that they have a vapor control layer installed around the entire interior, walls and ceiling - interior partitions are not framed yet, only bearing partitions. So you can see how there is an air tight "bag" around the entire conditioned space.

And why is it that you are up on ladders putting adhesive tape all over your sheathing? Its much easier to do air-tight and vapor control at the same place.

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Interesting + Informative dialog on implementing USA New Wall & Swedish Platform Framing

We had this dialog via our Facebook Page this week, and I thought it hit on several common questions about building with USA New Wall & Swedish Platform Framing today, as in right now - not some point in the future when all that is wrong with house building in the US is fixed.

NM: I am a small builder and am interrested in the Swedish Platform and USA New Wall framing. I am curious though if you have any photos or information on how the electrical is installed in the electrical space. Does the electrician need to do any special? Thank you for any information.

LamiDesign: Nothing special really Nathan. If you are using a 2x wiring space then you would use a 4x4x1.5" box, with a switch plate reducer cover - that will extend the 1/2" to the surface of the drywall. The 4x4 box actually has a bit more room inside than a typical single gang new work box, and being shallow makes the electrical work a bit easier IMO. The boxes can be screwed through the back to the main cavity studs, or through the sides into the cross furring - so there are actually twice as many options for where to mount them.
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Guest blogging today at Modular Home Builder

I am guest blogging today at a modular industry site called Modular Home Builder

MODULAR HOME BUILDER: An Architect Speaks Out About Modern Prefab

This interesting site gathers a readership from the industry side of modular home building. These factory owners and officers often don't understand why Modern PreFab vendors chase after this seemingly narrow slice of the market while it is obvious that most people buy traditionally styled homes. I wrote in to offer my observations on why a business might chase after this seemingly niche market. Check it out.

Ultimately this strikes on the very reasons why we have developed a catalog of modern house plans. There is a small but strong interest in homes like these, and it is an interest largely ignored by the market. Serving this niche is just a smart strategy.

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Plat House Mods on the boards

We are working on an extensive modification to a 3 bedroom Plat House for an customer in Hawaii. We are hoping this will be the next construction project we track here on the blog.

The house includes some interesting changes, such as the rearrangement of the bedrooms to create two master bedrooms. The third bedroom will do double duty as a library/study, separated from the living area with sliding screen walls.

Keep watching for this one here.

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This Weeks Top 5 House Plans, Jan 2013 week 4

Here they are - the most looked at house designs in our catalog for this past week:

In the number one position is the 0242 Plat House, our long standing best seller!

Followed closely by the 0367 Porch House, a favorite weekend cabin.

In the number three position, no surprise, is the 3bedroom version of the Plat House, 0971.

Right on its tales is the much loved 0518 U House.

And rounding out the top five, and just nudging out two other designs by 1 view is the 0751 RS House.

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Support Continued Development of USA New Wall & Swedish Platform Framing

There has been great interest and discussion of these energy efficient wall designs and we have posted a wealth of information about them. Enough for almost anybody to incorporate these techniques into their work. In return we now ask for your support.

Our web pages about USA New Wall and Swedish Platform Framing have quickly become the most popular content on our web site. We're glad that this information is useful to you, and your interest supports our goal of seeing these walls broadly adopted in our housing industry. If you have learned something from this material, taken away new insights or determination to build better, if you have incorporated these walls or elements of these walls into your work or if you plan to, then we want to ask for your further support on a PWYW (Pay-What-You-Want) basis.

What is PWYW? It is exactly what it sounds like. If you've read about these wall designs you've likely already decided whether these designs will be valuable to you. How valuable is your call. Use the link below to make a payment at your discretion. Even if you only want to pay a little now you can always come back if your appreciation grows.

The default charge is $1, but changing the quantity allows you to select any payment amount you wish. Simply change the quantity to set the payment amount you desire.

This support will allow us to continue to develop and promote these wall designs, and more importantly will alleviate me from seeking other more conventional and intrusive methods to fund development. This is not a donation and I am not a non-profit organization. But there is a wide expanse of possibilities between non-profit and a profit driven corporation. This is a cooperative effort and you can play an important part by contributing. I believe that energy efficient construction is the most important issue in housing for the USA right now, and that together we can make a difference by changing the status quo. These wall designs are here for you to use to that end and no matter what amount you choose your payment will help us continue to advance these goals. Thank you.

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Although we have posted very detailed information on these wall designs, clearly some readers desire more guidance and more information than can be taken away here. We think that is great and we encourage you to contact us for Consultation. We are eager to help you incorporate this into your work or adapt these designs to what you are building.

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Row-house concept - transverse stair plan

The goal to create a plan that worked at multiple widths has compounded into a plan that works in 2 story, 2 1/2 story, and even 3 story configurations. With two base plans and row-end conditions my mission has suddenly escalated into 48 different house plans.

Clearly the demand for all these variations will not be immediate, and it will be impossible to develop every one in advance of orders. The time to figure that out will come. Meanwhile lets look at the transverse stair plan version of the Row-house.

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Row-house concept - looking back

As we've been experimenting with different row-house arrangements around the front vs rear kitchen location, we are finding that a second great organizational paradigm is an equally critical factor. This would be the matter of a longitudinal or transverse staircase.

What is important to us here is that we are trying to devise a plan that will work well in a range of lot widths. This is a limitation imposed by the mission to make a stock plan or a row house - a single design for multiple situations.

In traditional Philadelphia row-houses there are some common patterns. It is not unusual to be confronted by the stair just inside of the front door. In larger townhouses this actually was a benefit to later conversions to apartments. In smaller homes this longitudinal stair if closer to the rear would deposit you at the back of the house on the second floor. The net impact on the second floor was a double wide circulation zone at the rear of the house that reduced the available width of a rear bedroom. This is not prohibitive, but just a factor that has a greater impact on a narrow house.

This is an approximate floor plan of an 1800s era 3 story row house rented by a friend. It was completely rehabbed at some point in time, and the partitions and room uses are not original to the house.

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Hurricane Sandy Recovery

ReBuilding Communities Damaged by Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy has devastated miles and miles of shore communities, destroying homes, businesses, public infrastructure, and displacing thousands of residents, merchants, and communities. The state of New Jersey is currently under a state of patch and repair that has created a state wide rush in real estate for displaced citizens, and a mini construction boom in emergency repairs and board-ups. Incredibly this has gone completely against the prior trend and has hit a depressed construction community off-guard and unprepared.

What lies ahead is an unprecedented need to restore these communities, to rebuild with vision, and clarity, to restore the salient qualities of these much loved communities, and an opportunity to correct and improve deeply entrenched deficiencies. Thankfully it appears all involved are committed to taking a long view to these restorations, and it appears regulations and planning will be well considered before anything is rebuilt with haste.

Gregory La Vardera Architect has completed many projects at the New Jersey Shore, and thankfully none have been washed away.  As we look forward to the work to come it is our sincere hope that this can be an opportunity to improve the energy performance of all the damaged and affected buildings, and that a higher performance standard can be applied to the homes and light commercial structures that are rebuilt in the affected areas.

We are eager to apply our work in energy performance building systems to the work that is coming, and we offer our service to Home Owners, Builders, Code Officials, and other Architects that may be working on the ReBuilding. Working together we can implement a wide spread improvement to the building stock in these affected communities. We look forward to the challenges ahead.
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Row-house concept - pondering townhouse ideas

Since we are right in Philadelphia's front yard, and since Philadelphia is one of the nations greatest row-house cities, it was only a matter of time until circumstances conspired to pressure us to explore a stock plan of a row-house.

Row-houses are not particularly suited to the idea of house plans. Its not like you can float the house on a lot with yards on all four sides. The lot size becomes the house width, and the prospect of finding a match between a floor plan and a lot size is almost slim to none. So what that means is to offer a stock design for a row house it has to be a flexible design that can work for a range of lot widths. Philadelphia has lots that range from 12ft for the narrowest up to 23 feet for the widest, but most fall between 14-18 ft wide.

Is that really possible? Well that's what we've set out to discover. The first task was to test ideas for the arrangement of interior spaces and functions to see what plans might be tolerant of a variable lot width. Then I'll take my hunches into measured sketches to see if the numbers add up, if the hunch flies.

I want to test two general arrangements, front kitchen or rear kitchen. Each offers some distinct advantages and both are worth seeing through to a schematic level. But for either there would be some ground rules.

Space is a premium in city houses, so some "features" people have come to expect in suburban houses will simply be too extravagant for this exercise. These houses are meant to be modest and affordable homes. For instance, a ground floor powder room is going to be very unlikely. Guests will simply have to go upstairs. And upstairs its unlikely there will be a master suite with a master bathroom, but rather a shared hall bathroom. These are situations that are not uncommon for our modest existing row house stock in cities like Philadelphia, so we will follow the lead of the existing houses, take them as precedent and not try to turn this into a suburban dream house. These are not compromises, but rather this is the status quo if you have ever lived in a 100 year old row home in a city that dates back to the birth of our nation. So lets see where that takes us.

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