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Living Smaller
Witold Rybczynski, Atlantic
Big houses may someday look as outdated and impractical as big cars, for many of the same reasons
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In May of 1990, my collegues and I built a demonstration house on the campus of McGill University, in downtown Montreal, to test a thesis of ours: if people thinking of changing houses could experience the advantages of high-quality, smaller, more flexible, and more adaptable houses, they might actually choose smaller rather than larger quarters. The Grow Home was small (1,000 square feet); it included unpartitioned space; it was adaptable to different households; it used good-quality finishes and materials. And it was a row house, only fourteen feet wide. The construction cost was about $35,000, which meant that the selling price in Montreal, including land and all development costs, would have been less than $60,000—about half the price of an average single-family house in Montreal at the time.
The house was fully furnished (by a Swedish manufacturer of do-it-yourself furniture), and it was open to the public for three weeks. Each day a stream of people made their way up the stairs to the porch and through the house. As they approached the house, their first reaction was usually “Isn’t it tiny!” And the Grow Home was tiny—fourteen feet is unusually narrow for a row house. Its smallness was exaggerated by its site: it stood alone, like a slice of bread removed from a loaf, surrounded by large university buildings. The Grow Home resembled a doll’s house, albeit an elegant one, since the facade was designed in the traditional manner.
Once inside—the first room was the kitchen—people commonly reacted with surprise at the amount of space: “It’s much bigger than I thought; it doesn’t feel small at all.”
… The aftershock came in the form of a series of scientific disclosures about the deteriorating state of the physical environment, particularly global warming. Family cars, as well as power plants, were among the chief sources of carbon-dioxide emissions, so dependence on automobiles was seen as a problem once again. The more general issues of conservation of energy, physical resources, and land were also again raised, and critics were quick to point out that the suburban house lavishly consumed all three. The abundant resources that accounted for the success of the large single-family suburban house—unlimited land, cheap transportation, and plentiful energy—can no longer be taken for granted.
(February 1991)
Pointed out at The Oil Drum. Leanan writes: “This article is dated 1991. Just as we started on that SUV and McMansion binge.”
A succulent solution to a fiery problem
Guy Adams, The Independent
When a fast-moving wildfire forced Suzy and Rob Schaefer to grab their most treasured possessions, jump in a car and flee their home in the San Diego dormitory town of Rancho Santa Fe, they feared they would come back to a burnt-out wreck.
Instead, the couple returned to find their property in one piece: flames had roared down the eucalyptus and palm-filled canyon above, lapped at the edges of their garden, scorched a few plants – and suddenly petered out within six feet of the building. Luck was certainly on their side. But so too was nature: the aloes, agaves and other “succulent” plants in their garden had acted as a fire retardant, stopping the blaze in its tracks. As the delighted email they sent friends and family that night explained, “succulents saved our home!”
They weren’t the only ones. This week, a year after their escape, the Schaefers were reminded of their good fortune as the annual Santa Ana winds brought southern California’s wildfire season to the fringes of Los Angeles, destroying 50 houses, killing a man, and forcing thousands from their homes…
(19 October 2008)
Mexico pollution solution: Rooftop gardens
Jeremy Schwartz, Cox International
City embarks on program to cut energy use and temperatures.
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Mexico City —- Smog routinely hangs thick over this city, shrouding dramatic mountains on the horizon and swirling past skyscrapers like fetid clouds.
But when Tanya Muller looks into the gray expanse, past miles of concrete buildings with flat roofs, she sees something else entirely: possibility.
On those rooftops, Mexico City officials soon hope to see healthy splashes of green.
The city is embarking on an ambitious program to carpet its concrete cityscape with rooftop gardens, or green roofs, that it hopes will suck up and filter the city’s notorious pollution, cut energy use and lower the city’s temperature.
“It’s hard to increase green spaces in a city like this because there’s really no more space,” said Muller, the city’s director of urban reforestation. “But almost all of the buildings in this city can support green roofs … There’s an enormous potential.”
(19 October 2008)
