Best Green Houses - A guest cabin near Yellowstone (Sheridan: heat pump, construction)

[CptnRn]

I thought this was pretty exciting when I saw this headline.

Best Green Houses - Back to the Future: A guest cabin near Yellowstone asks, “What’s the style of sustainability?”

Sadly it turns out this was built near Big Sky, Montana. But the style of the house borrows much from the Historic structures in Wyoming, at Yellowstone National Park. I assume some of you will be interested in it.

Best Green Houses: Back to the Future: A guest cabin near Yellowstone asks, “What’s the style of sustainability?”
Best Green Houses: Headwaters Camp
Dan Joseph Architects
April 2010
Readers located in the Rocky Mountain region of North America may have spotted the most recent issue of Mountain Living magazine, which announced that Headwaters Camp, a 1,800-square-foot, LEED-Platinum guest cabin located in Big Sky, Montana, had won one of the magazine’s Responsible Development Awards. The accolades seem fitting for Mountain Living, which covers a whole spectrum of homes but regularly features designs with traditional trappings. The house’s maker, Daniel Turvey, advocates for inclusion here, too.

Sustainability is generally conflated with a Modernist aesthetic, says the Bozeman, Montana–based architect, adding, “I think sustainability works in all vernaculars. Sustainable practice can be exercised on every level.” With Headwaters Camp, sustainability has been paired to a rusticity inspired by the National Park Service architecture of Stanley Underwood and Robert Reamer…

…Turvey says that, while his past projects have incorporated passive sustainable strategies as a nod to good design generally, he has not had the opportunity to prove his claim with active green technologies. For Headwaters Camp, clients Melissa and Todd Thomson insisted upon LEED certification, and considered active technology from the start—mandating fishing ponds and streams with enough capacity to permit a closed-loop heating and cooling system for Headwaters Camp and a yet unbuilt main house. Large enough, in this case, tops 1 million gallons water-source heat pump…

Other energy conservation and green features include...

• an air-exchange system
• recycles graywater for dual-flush toilets and irrigation uses
• photovoltaic array mounted to the roof of an adjacent barn
• firebox and chimney chase that block air infiltration
• air tight construction
• triple-glazed windows
• closed-cell spray-foam and batt-overlay insulation
• exterior includes standing-dead timbers and trees locally
• dimensional exterior rafters were salvaged from demolition materials
• logs’ skins clad the roof of the residence’s outdoor room,
• remaining wood scraps were chipped and sent to a biomass power plant in Idaho
• reclaimed dimensional timber, barnwood siding, hutch, a trough once used for kneading dough
• an array of shed antlers (comprising the interior stair's balusters)
• reused materials clad almost every square foot of Headwaters Camp

Many people in Wyoming have been building much of their cabins, ranches and homes in these ways for years, using reclaimed materials, interesting how it has now become fashionable.

[WyoNewk]

My wife says she'll take it!

Nice house!

We've talked about building a waterfall in our backyard for a few years now. We could use it as a background for my portrait photography business. The problem is we'd have to first build a hill in our back yard!


Okay, the REAL first problem is the cost.

[CptnRn]

Build it as a wall rather then a hill. If you did the labor yourself it shouldn't be to expensive. Lots of places you can go pick up rocks for free. But man those rocks are heavy!

[CptnRn]

See more photos of the house here Best Green Houses: Headwaters Camp - Dan Joseph Architects | Slide show | GreenSource

[Ann the Artist]

Absolutely gorgeous. I could get downright accustomed to life in that place! However, when we move to Wyoming in the next couple of months it will be to a small parcel of land we bought last year, pulling our fifth wheel trailer. Until we sell our Fort Worth place, that will be home for us. In this market, only The Good Lord knows when that will be. But I guarantee that whenever it does sell, what 3,000 square feet in Fort Worth will bring won't build anything near that in Wyoming!

[CptnRn]

Here is that architects website Dan Joseph Architects with more great pictures. His office is in Sheridan, Wyoming.

http://www.djawest.com/Hall_YC309-8024-small.jpg

More large photos here Big Sky Journal: Living Large, but Stepping Lightly Photos