Out of Plumb!

On Thursday morning 4 UT students, research assistant Matt Lyle, and Albert Cooper, General Contractor for Johnson & Galyon eagerly arrived at the house to continue the installing rigid insulation on the ceiling, drywall on the marriage wall, and trim around the Anderson windows. Matt Lyle and Aaron Grohol had to maneuver the scaffolding throughout the kitchen and living spaces with the button cap nail gun nailing in large sheets of rigid insulation.

Katherine Dike and I worked on the trim around the Andersen window frames. The drywall will be returning on the window openings and will meet up against the trim pieces. The trim creates a consistent space between the rough opening and the actual window frame. The pieces are flushed with the interior window frame to create an extension of the frame similar to the frames that were constructed in UT wood shop. We first had to spray insulation around the frame to maintain the tight envelope of the house, but it was very difficult to cut back the insulation once it had expanded and fully dried.

Albert Cooper and Laws Nelson stayed out of the way of the large scaffolding to work on the installation of the drywall. On Monday, the dry wall man will be graciously installing what we have not completed, so our work has to be finished by Monday. Unfortunately, Al's good eye found that the marriage wall is not completely straight. We have all gotten used to the slight variations in measurement in the construction of the house, but the marriage wall curved near the connections of the vertical and horizontal members. Al and Laws and to cut 1/2" furring strips to make a vertical surface the screw in the drywall.

About the time Al and Laws were getting ready to screw in the drywall I had to leave the site to meet our professor Tricia Stuth and research assistant Samuel Mortimer. At 3:30 pm we left UTK and drove an hour and a half down to the McCallie School in Chattanooga, TN. McCallie was having their second ever Science Night, and we were invited to present conceptual and systematic aspects of A New Norris House. Although we didn't leave Chattanooga until 9:30 pm, it was great to see the enthusiasm from the middle school and high school boys and especially their parents. The program was extremely organized, welcoming and fun, and we would love to go back next year to share our progress of the project.

New Norris House Interior Construction

With just a few weeks into the Spring semester, a lot of planning and fabricating is taking place inside the New Norris House and at UT's art & architecture wood shop. With many new faces joining the Norris House team this semester, students are eager to get involved and learn new skills to help with the completion of the house.

This week Smart Home Products finished the installation of the Icynene spray foam insulation in the roof, floor joists and stud walls of the home. The insulation material was a donation from Compton Sales company and will help increase the homes efficiency. This will also aid in the achievement of a LEED Platinum rating.

Also this week, the French doors which will eventually open up onto the New Norris house's back deck were installed. This door was installed by UT students with the help of Albert, a carpenter for the General Contractor Johnson & Galyon. The French doors bring a lot of needed light into the home's kitchen and living space. In addition to the doors new gypsum board is being hung on the interior walls. Once some remaining fire alarm placement and rigid insulation issues are taken care of, the rest of the gypsum board will be installed.

Interior Concepts

While the new Norris house embodies many innovative ideas in terms of building and living, the project ultimately establishes the frame for a Home. As construction progresses forward, questions of interior design are raised as the choice of finishes, colors and furniture will greatly influence the experience of the space. A first conceptual pin-up is scheduled for Thursday, when the interior team will present two schemes: a “minimal” and a “color pop” scheme, expanding upon the original ideas for the design. Communication is vital to the development of an interior palette; discussions and endless chains of emails have been going back and forth between the cabinet, bathroom and interiors team, as well as most members of the new Norris house studio. Since no interior design students were able to take part in the seminar class, collaboration with faculty and classmates will help the team throughout the design process.

As architecture students, we rarely have the occasion to address projects on the level of detail required by the design of interiors: we experience for the first time a new facet of our discipline. Time is allocated to consider every step taken throughout the house, to study the materiality and color of each surface and how they affect feeling within the space. The abstract concepts we have been taught how to develop are suddenly challenged by the number of practicalities required in the making of a house. Design starts to entice a meaning which goes beyond aesthetics, and takes us back to the normality of life --a normality of which we are now aware, having been away from it for so long. Although our conversations revolve around tangible and quantifiable elements, such as color schemes, wood flooring, tiles, lighting, furniture and window treatments, they address the rituals of everyday life, shaping the pieces of the puzzle which, one day, will mean Home.

color pop

Demo, Insulation, and Uneven Walls

The beginning of this semester started with some minor drywall demo. When Clayton Homes built the house they added a 1/8" thick layer of energy board on the inside wall that the two sections shared. The problem was that they energy board was only installed from the top of the wall to about four feet from the floor, instead of the full distance. This made the drywall slope inward toward the studs an eighth of an inch in the four feet that the energy board was not installed. We had to tear out the existing drywall to remove all of the energy board on the wall that faces the kitchen and some of the wall that faces into the bedroom. The next problem was the light fixture in the bathroom, which was about an inch and a half off center. This also required ripping down the ceiling and adjusting the fixture. The final bit of demo so far was the 2’ wide section of wall that separates the swing space from the other half of the house. This wall was out of plumb by I think three quarters of an inch. We had to take the drywall down to fix the problem.

After all of the demolition the insulation was sprayed on Thursday and Friday and they will be back sometime soon to finish the rest of the ceiling. It was an interesting process to watch. A layer would be sprayed on about as thick as a layer of paint from a roller but within a few seconds it would fill over half of the 12 inch cavity space between the common rafters. Although the install job was incomplete Sam managed to convince the company to send their crew back out there to fill in some of the voids.

Once the insulation was finished and we were able to get back inside without masks we were going to install OSB on the dormer wall. Once the sheet was cut to size and nailed up we realized that the top plate of the wall, that it was resting on, was not square. The wall went from a 1/4" gap between the stud to the inside face of the drywall on one side to a 1/8" gap on the other. Since this problem would not allow for the drywall to sit flush will the piece below we had to remove the OSB and add furring strips. The strips were cut to 1/8", 3/16", and 1/4" thicknesses from several 2x4's. Once cut they were attached to the studs to correct the uneven dimensions between the studs and drywall.

With all of this preparation almost complete we hope to be installing the new drywall sometime at the beginning of this week.

Cabinets & Casework

As the house continues to advance, we have come to a point where we need to buckle down and make some pretty important decisions about the interior construction and aesthetic. One major component is the built-in kitchen casework. We know that we are trying to achieve a clean, simple, and elegant look, but we are unsure as to how to advance with the construction. One method would be to order premanufactured cabinet boxes in standard sizes and then complete them by producing our own cabinet doors and custom components. While this limits us to standard cabinet sizes, it gives us the advantage of saving some time - keeping us from fabricating all of the components ourselves.

But in the interest of saving some cold, hard cash, we are pursuing the option of fabricating all of the casework ourselves. More than just saving money, this will allow us to produce more custom cabinetry to suite the needs of the house and it will prove to be an invaluable educational tool for all the students involved in the design and construction of the cabinets. In addition to the traditional woodworking tools found in the woodshop, we also have a CNC router available to aid in our attempt to create beautiful casework. Using CNC (computer numerical control) router, we can build a 3-dimensional model of the cabinets in the computer and have each piece precisely cut out on the router. This ensures precision and helps save material as it fits the most amount of pieces possible on each sheet of plywood. After the pieces are cut out, we just need to assemble them with a minimal amount of finishing of the materials.

We plan to use this week to ensure that we are competent to complete the casework in a timely fashion. By the end of the week, we will finish designing the cabinets and hopefully build one cabinet box using the CNC router, recognizing any weaknesses we have in our process.

Random thoughts on this week:

1. A $3.00 piece of metal is not worth the $40.00 shipping cost.

This piece of metal, called a reglet, will hopefully be fabricated instead. It is placed between the fiber cement boarding underneath the windows on the southern side of the house and will be painted a color that is to be determined. Mary and Claire are working on this part of the project, studying possible color schemes for the interiors and exteriors of the house.

2. The resident of the Norris House will probably be able to live off the grid for quite awhile if in fact a catastrophic event does occur…

I am taking a class entitled the Political Economy Oil. We discussed what would happen in the event of peak oil in class this week, which led to me think how the Norris House prepares its inhabitants for the future inability to be reliant on oil. Its greater amount of insulation lessens the amount of energy expended on heating and cooling, and the water cistern and garden space mean greater independence. As long as the new Norris house owner can hunt in the neighboring woods, he/she could probably survive.

3. We have a lot to accomplish this semester.

On Friday Arya and I got to put the tasks to complete the exterior in order. There is a lot to do. Good thing our team this semester is ready to work!

A New Norris Landscape: Sustainability and LEED

The town of Norris has been rooted in a sense of self-sustainability since its inception, and the landscape has played a key role. The Norris landscape was originally conceived as a scenic beauty but also as a productive, research-oriented, life and work-sustaining tool. It only follows then that the focus on sustainability and LEED accreditation applied at the New Norris House would extend into its surrounding landscape as well.

The site and landscape plans are important factors when considering LEED accreditation. The approach to the Sustainable Sites credits begins with the stewardship and remediation of the existing site. During construction, measures have been taken to prevent erosion, limit the disturbance of the site, and remediate existing conditions that could adversely affect the long-term environmental sustainability of the site. Strategies include the use of silt fences and erosion control blankets during construction, a clear plan delineating the proper equipment and material staging and work areas to prevent unnecessary site disturbance, undoing previous soil compaction, and removing all invasive plant species and non-sustainable plant species from the site.

The stewardship of the site continues through a landscape design strategy that responds to several aspects of creating a sustainable site. The ornamental plant materials specified have been chosen for their drought-tolerance, native status, and/or wildlife benefits. A no-mow meadow along the western edge of the site includes native perennials and grasses and will provide habitat and food for wildlife as well as soil regeneration and increased surface water retention and infiltration. A second no-mow meadow along the road right-of-way will capture sheet flow in a rain event and provide a permeable area for surface water percolation. The existing turf grass blend will be removed during the construction phase and replaced with a drought-tolerant species that does not require frequent mowing, chemical supplements, or irrigation after establishment.

Stay tuned for more information on the rainwater irrigated vegetable beds, grey water garden, and rain garden!

Honing the Skills

Though we completed our entry door frames and slabs [inner structure] near the end of last semester, there is still a great deal of designing and fabricating to be done on them. Additionally, there are two more doors and a cistern enclosure door to be completed. The past few days have been spent getting our drawings, materials, and skills in line.

Because a new team came on-line just last week, it has been important to get everyone on the same page. Because I spent a great deal of time in the wood-shop last semester, I have been showing newbies Justin and Matt how to use specific tools and fabrication processes so that they will be knowledgeable as the semester progresses. We have started with the simplest [crawl space] door in order to hone our skills. In three days we have gone over how to: 1) take a rough-cut and often warped piece of wood through a jointer, planer, and table saw in order to get it perfectly square; 2) biscuit join the inner slab; 3) rout the plywood faces for a perfect edge; 4) dato cut the corners of the door frame for an optimal gluing surface; and 5) assemble the pieces for a square frame.

Aside from showing off our fresh skills, this list begins to show the importance of understanding the process of building component assembly and fabrication when solving design problems both on the site and in the office/lab during the design and drawing process. In order to draw a manufactured object, one must first know how to manufacture that object.

For example: today Matt, Justin and I went to research some Andersen hardware for our doors. Needing all entry hardware to match [between our Andersen french doors and self-fabricated doors] we are required to use a specific hardware which requires us to rout mechanical channels into the edges of our fabricated doors. It was a culminating moment for me to see us work through this multi-faceted problem together. Now that Matt and Justin have a sense of familiarity with the fabrication process, it is easy for us to have intelligent problem-solving conversations about how we can fabricate these doors to work with our complex hardware. It will only get easier as we become more adept in the fabrication process.

Being familiar with how something is built only pushes a design further because it allows us to fix an issue before it becomes one. As we acquire more knowledge about building methods and tools, we bring compounding options on how to solve a single problem. This honing of skills will only help us as we begin to work through even more complex designs of details - such as our hidden-opaque-window-assembly [even the name is complex] due next week.

For some of us graduation is just around the corner, making it easy to think about how these skills apply to an office environment. Throughout this process of designing, testing, redesigning, building, and repeating as necessary, we will be able to pass this knowledge of design and process on to our peers and co-workers, allowing us to improve overall design intent from large to small-scale, and effectively enhance collaborative energy and problem solving in an office environment.

Solar Lines and Design Intent

Over the course of the past few months I have been tasked with organizing and overseeing the successful installation of the home's MEP systems. Today I met on-site with Ed Zubko of Green Earth Solar as he installed the lines which carry the heat exchange fluid (glycol) between the energy pack and the solar panel on the roof.

Due to the nature of the project, this has not been a very straight-forward process. A typical installation of these lines would occur before any drywall or insulation was in place. In our case, as the shell of the home was completed by Clayton Homes several months ago, we had to plan ahead for this by running PVC sleeves in the walls during factory production.

Even this was not enough however, as the path of the lines as they traveled from the heat exchanger to reach the roof involved several 90 degrees bends. This required the use of flexible stainless steel lines, rather than the typical installation of flexible copper (sort of flexible, but not certainly not as durable). Thankfully for all the parties involved, we were generously donated an excellent product from Flexsure which withstood a great deal of stress in the fishing of these insulated lines through PVC sleeves.

While many of these hassles could have been designed around by altering the location of the energy-pack (heat exchanger) and hot water tank, this would have inevitable consequences on the spatial layout of the home. This brings to question a frequent discussion in architectural practice of the efficiency of the building systems in relation to the project's design intent. Ideally these two concepts are one in the same. However, in a case such as this where our team did not completely understand the limitations of the glycol lines during the initial design process... a lapse occurs.

It is easy as the architect to draw a line on the computer showing the glycol line turning into the crawlspace, laterally down the rim-joist, vertically up to the eve of the dormer, 90 degrees into the joist bays of the dormer, and finally punching through the roof deck. It is quite another thing to shove these lines up PVC sleeves (with right angle bends) in a wall-system that has already been closed.

Would we have still put the mechanical closet in the same place knowing this information? It's possible. Regardless, we are now armed with the knowledge and experience of what this worst-case scenario entails. Lesson learned.

Siding in-progress...

Classes will recommence Wednesday and there is plenty of siding work left to complete. This photo is a nice example of how the final facade will look, but there is nearly 80% of the work left to do! Let's hope for warmer weather!

Spring Semester Begins

The winter break is over and we are ready to get back to work for the spring. The weather has turned considerably colder than when our class was last working at the end of November. Hopefully, within the next two weeks we will complete the insulation of the roof and will be able to heat the home a lot more efficiently with temporary heaters. Generally speaking, the division of work between this semester and last semester is that we will be focusing primarily on the interior this spring (while last fall was mostly about the exterior).

There is a mounting list of tasks to complete as we continue our march towards a early summer completion date. Classes begin next week and we will have a new batch of students to begin investigating a variety of design and construction issues remaining. This semester our class will be open to 4th and 5th year students, as well as the possibility of hosting Polish exchange students who come to the School of Architecture every spring. After two full years of working on the project-- I can honestly say the class dynamic has been different every semester, and expect a similar outcome this spring.

A very brief summary of our primary focuses this spring includes:

• Design and fabricate all interior casework and built in furniture (kitchen, bedroom, and swing room)
• All mechanical, plumbing, and electrical fixtures/units still need to be installed
• Installing rainwater catchment system (which arrived Monday!)
• Drywall installation on ceiling and around windows
• Install interior and exterior doors
• Interior furnishings
• Making preparations for a landscape work to be done when the weather turns around