This week I was finally able to meet with Dr. Moline! She is the ecology professor here in town that designed and built her own house using some sustainable methods. We met at her house, and she gave us a tour while explaining all of the things that went into designing it. This was the first time I got to actually see the process an architect goes through and the relationship they have with a building.It was amazing how much she knew, and what she learned from designing it, and what she shared with me.

Some fun, kind of sad parts she shared were stories of a few mishaps that happened. She told us of when the builders had the wrong measurements for the doors to her bedroom and cut a space for them that was way too tall, and that a section of her concrete floor is wavy from not being smoothed out before drying and a few other things like that.  But the fun part was that she was able to turn all those little miscalculations into something beautiful. She now has a lovely window with tulips painted across it, fitted in the space above her bedroom doors, and a thick, warm rug over the wavy concrete. But there was one mistake that couldn’t be easily fixed. During the beginning of the project, a builder misread the measurements of a door frame and installed it 11 inches to the right of where it was supposed to be. Because of that, her hallway, stairs, cupboard, and mechanical room lost those 11 inches and were squished to the right.  However, if she didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t have known. Normally, something like that wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but in Dr. Moline’s house, it just happened to take the inches from a hallway, staircase, and mechanical room which all have regulated and enforced sizes they need to be; the staircase must be a minimum of 36 inches wide, and same with the hallway. Lucky, she was able to adjust and recalculate it all and pass inspection. Because of this, the most important thing I took from the tour of the house was as an architect or builder; you always need to double check and re-measure, and then double check again before doing anything. Dr. Moline even gave me a set of her design plans to look at and practice reading, so if I ever do become an architect, I won’t make the same little mistakes! 

This is Dr. Moline showing me the design plans and teaching me how to read them and showing me the different pages. Each set of plans has multiple pages, showing specific details of specific parts of the house. For example, one page just shows the outside structure of the house, and another just shows the electrical work etc. Reading the plans is not that intuitive so lucky each page has a little key in the corner, but it's still difficult to understand. 

This is us again, here she is showing me the computer software called Sketch-Up. She designed her house through this software. I just downloaded it a few days ago, and I have been messing around on it for more hours than I care to admit. It's a lot of fun becasue it lets you add in measurements and virtually build a house any way you want, and even add in textures and other details. 

The Joy of Insulation

So this week was all about insulation!

Insulation is one of the most important parts of a building because it is the one thing that determines the temperature, and how much energy is used to heat and cool the building daily. It doesn't really matter how sustainable the flooring or windows or roofing is, because if you have poor insulation your energy consumption will cancel out the sustainability of the other materials.

I began researching the different possible types and as you can imagine there are hundred and hundreds of types of insulation. Mainly because there are so many different raw materials that can make up the insulation, and different buildings require different insulation that matches the function of the building. For example, an office building that runs all year will have pretty thick and complex insulation to maintain the temperature all day and not have a huge energy bill at the end of each year. But other buildings such as warehouses or car garages that tend to be used for short periods of time have very minimal insulation. And then there are other buildings, like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, that use recycled denim jeans as efficient insulation. All these different variables open a wide range of materials for me to look at so I am trying to narrow it down to either the most common type used, or just what is used here in Flagstaff on the N.A.U. campus.

Slow and Steady

This week was a little slower than most. I did reach out to a few more N.A.U. faculty members to talk about their work, and most got back to me. We are planning to meet after Spring Break. One of the faculty members is Ms. Holly Yeager, who is the Career Development Coordinator for the Professional Science Masters Program in Climate Science and Solutions (CSS). Her job is to basically help students find a career path in climate study and sustainability, so I look forward to hearing how successful she has been helping students, and to hear the different career options students actually have in these fields.
I am still analyzing and comparing materials as well, this week and next week I'll be looking into the manufacturing process of insulation. I am going to be comparing the different types for specific buildings, the advantages/disadvantages of those types, and the different individual raw materials that go into each kind of insulation.
I still haven't had a chance to look at Dr. Moline's adobe house yet due to scheduling complications, but fingers crossed it all works out for next week!