KGE Real Estate » green

Modified Floor Plan for Container Home

kyle — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:40:23 +0000

Over the last several days I have been looking at the design of our future container home and I realized that I could achieve much more with the design if I separated the two containers. If I was going do that, I figure I might as well put the staircase in the middle of the two containers. This would save me the hassle of having to cut out any structural cross members and give me the added room to take care of some of the limited space constraints of the house. The house is still very reasonably sized, and it is much more livable than the previous version.

Resources for a green container home

kyle — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:13:45 +0000

In order to help with the design on our green shipping container home in Winnipeg, I have ordered the following two books:

With Intermodal Shipping Container Small Steel Buildings, Paul Sawyer has written the first book dedicated to building with shipping containers and it includes examples of a number of different buildings you can create using this modular architecture.

Michelle Kaufman has worked with renowned architects Frank Gehry and Michael Graves. In prefab green, architect Michelle Kaufmann shares her vision of creating thoughtful sustainable designs for everyone. Her firm, Michelle Kaufmann Designs, blends sustainable home layouts, eco-friendly materials, and low-energy options to create a “prepackaged” green solution to home design. Kaufmann tells about five eco-principles that are present in every design her firm creates-smart design, eco-materials, energy efficiency, water conservation, and healthy environment-and how they work together to create homes that make a difference. This will surely provide some excellent knowledge to help us get the project LEED certified.

I look forward to receiving these resources so that I can learn some of the finer details needed to make this project successful. I already know I am up against some difficult engineering work in order to make this work in the extreme climates of Winnipeg.

Modeling a shipping container

kyle — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:21:40 +0000

Last time I wrote I talked about the idea of building a shipping container home. The first and foremost thing on my mind with that idea was whether I would be able to find a reliable source for the containers here in Winnipeg. If we were on the coast or in a much bigger city I would not be concerned because those place have trade deficits. Those trade deficits mean there are a lot more containers coming than there are going and so many of those containers get sold. Well, luckily, one of my buddies knew someone in town who sell them.

This company brings them in mainly from Toronto. At first, the idea of bringing containers in from a couple of thousand miles away worried me because it would go against the low carbon footprint of the green concept and we are looking to get this building LEED Certified. However, when one of these containers is ordered the shipping company gets it packed full to bring goods to Winnipeg. Therefore, the purpose of the shipping container remains as a shipping container right up until it gets to Winnipeg and then it gets retired. Once it is retired, it is now a locally sourced item, which is an important factor to the green concept.

Once we knew that we had a source for the containers, I figured I should play around with something closer to the real thing than just the simply computer model I have. So where else to turn but to LEGO. Yes, I built a LEGO model of the house, starting with 4 individual containers. This will help me to understand how it would need to be modified to maintain the structural integrity and eventually the thermal integrity.

Building a Shipping Container Home in Winnipeg

kyle — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:35:06 +0000

A couple of friends and I have been tossing around the possibility of building a L.E.E.D. certified home here in Winnipeg. Specifically, I would like to build a home out of shipping containers and employ as many “green” technologies and design philosophies as possible.

I plan on using two 8′ x 40′ containers on each floor, set on a standard foundation for a home with approximately 1200 sf of living space plus a finished basement.

Some of the “green” technologies that I am considering are as follows:

geothermal heating and cooling
gray water reuse in toilets
on-demand hot water heaters
dual flush and low flow fixtures
rooftop garden
permeable surfaces on walkways and driveway
rain water harvesting
Energy Star appliances
high efficiency windows and doors

As a starting point, I wanted to see what I could do to give the home some curbside appeal. Anyway, as a first stab at it, this is what I have come up with.

The door on the roof provides access with a set of retractable attic stairs.

Please post comments of what you think of the images.

By the way, this is a house we would be selling, not living in ourselves. So if you would be interested in something like this, let me know your ideas and maybe we can help each other.

What Does Green Really Mean?

kyle — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:07:04 +0000

I recently read an article about “green” buildings that I thought I should share with you. I got the article in a newsletter for the design software I use, Home Designer by Chief Architect. I has some good examples from different parts of the U.S. More importantly, it talks about the various aspects of “green” design that affect the “green”ness of a home. While most of this information is old hat for the commercial arena, residential has taken a while longer to take hold of these concepts. You can read the article at the link below.

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/finehome/what-does-green-really-mean.pdf

Doors Open Winnipeg

kyle — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:44:08 +0000

This post is a little late, but important. Yesterday, my family and I took advantage of Doors Open Winnipeg. The city has opened the doors to many of its most significant buildings.

We took a tour of many of the “greenest” buildings in the city and some of the most amazing architecture of the last 100 years.

The most amazing thing for me was the Bank of Montreal Building, built in 1913. The entire building is made of marble, inside and out. Truly awe inspiring. They don’t build them like that anymore, not even in the grandest casinos around the world. My favourite part of that tour was seeing the vault. Steel a couple of feet thick for each of the TWO doors. The workmanship looked as if it had been built in the last decade, not nearly 100 years ago.

Doors Open Winnipeg was so good, we are doing it again today.