Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Ready, Set, Go!

So what do you think I woke up one morning and decided I want to buy a green-ish house?  Well, kind of, but it was slightly more deliberate than that. 

What exactly did I want? What did I hope to accomplish?  I thought about the various types of places I’ve lived and extracted what I loved, liked and hated about each of them. I reviewed past floor plans (yes, I have them all) and I then visualized the various attributes that would be important in making this new structure a long-term place to work and live.
  • Energy/Water Efficient 
  • Sustainable Materials
  • High-Quality 
  • Factory-Built Modern Structure 
  • American Made Materials 
  • Simple But Exciting Design 
  • Design Augments Surrounding Neighborhood 
  • Kid And Dog Friendly 
  • Easy To Clean & Maintain 
  • Open & Light Filled Spaces 
  • Interesting 
  • Fun & Comfortable 
  • Private & Secure 
From that list I started to think about specific "must have" appointments were necessary to meet the above objectives.
  • Flexible Commercial Space For Vehicle Storage, Restoration, Stone Carving, and Workshop 
  • Open Office Space
  • 3 Bedrooms, 2+ Baths
  • Outdoor Green Space
  • Leverage Water view to see Harbor and Statue of Liberty
  • Connection for Electric Car (coming soon I hope)
  • Flagpole and US Flag
  • Leverage Government Energy Programs
As you will see, this list will change and as what was and was not possible, became more clearly delimited by land availability, design, time, and budget options.  I will cover most of them in detail in coming weeks.  Did I miss anything?  Any thoughts on my attributes and appointments?  Please jump in real-time as we work through the project by commenting below.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think one of the design challenges as more people look to implement these projects will be fitting in with the surrounding neghborhood - or augmentation.

As I look for various sites in LA, bottom line is that there are some neighborhoods that factory built and modern would just not work in.