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 entire 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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Many structures that have been flooded will loose their interior drywall and insulation in the remediation process. This is a perfect opportunity to install higher R-Value stone wool insulation, and establish an insulated wiring chase inboard of a vapor control barrier. Its a natural application of the USA New Wall in a retrofit application.
ReplyDeleteReaders should note that our Modern House Plans are in most cases easily adapted to a pier foundation as required in most coastal severe flood zones. And many of our more recent designs will fit on the narrow lots typical in many of the affected seaside communities. These are good replacements for the typical small capes and small ranch homes very common along the coast. Using a predesigned house in most cases will speed the way back to rebuilding.
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