The EV (definition link) battery will function as energy storage, and transportation. Although it may seem ridiculous to transport energy between buildings using the batteries in EV’s, a great deal of recent research and analysis (citations forthcoming) is demonstrating that this may be a useful transition strategy. EV batteries are huge relative to those needed to support a home. The differences in schedules of energy production and use across buildings and vehicles offers opportunities to match peaks in energy generation and demand. Moving energy between buildings, especially from surplus producing ones like the house at Ramboland to other nearby homes without as much renewable energy production capacity, can even out . Until we have widespread blockscale “nanogrids” nested within neighborhood microgrids, we still need ways of moving energy between buildings and across streets, to supplement the traditional centralized energy grid with cleaner energy for greater resilience, especially in more vulnerable communities. Check out the “Satellite Block Battery Exchange” TT for more (INSERT LINK).

As the YIMBY model spreads, neighboring roofs can be renovated addressing issues such as leaks, wear and tear, and structural damage, as well as improving insulation. Renovated roofs will be equipped with solar PV (definition link) modules which will extend the life of the roof, shade its surface, and in connection with Ramboland’s core systems, create a solar powered electricity “nanogrid” (a small microgrid - microgrid definition link) in a vulnerable community, extending the benefits of clean and resilient energy to the neighborhood over time, as neighbors opt-in. All this work will also result in redirecting rain that falls on the roof and PV directly to community cisterns (definition link), or to rain barrels (usually 50 gallon barrels at the base of a home’s downspout) that can be picked up by the Ramboland EV. The additional power generation will provide for any electric pumping necessary, but in most cases gravity will do all the work.

Architecturally structured pockets of air organized against north wall increasing insulation (effectively) on the side exposed to cold winter prevailing winds. In other words, closets, murphy beds, mechanical rooms, cabinets, bathroom, and even the vegetation on the exterior, all further protect and insulate the most thermally vulnerable exposure of the building. An Oxford study found that heavily vegetated building facades were not only an average of 15 degrees cooler in the Summer, but more surprisingly 10 degrees warmer in the winter!

The bathtub itself is a wheelchair-transfer walk-iIn tub with a fast fill Faucet, and massage jets. The orthopedic and quality of life benefits of this are clear. And like the pot-filler* in the kitchen space, flow-rate is irrelevant, in terms of water usage, because you'll put the same amount of water into the tub regardless of how fast it gets there. Getting it there faster will also save a small amount of energy because less heat will be lost before use.

The bathtub is set up like a peninsula extending into the bathroom instead of with its long side against a wall, as would be the typical way to place it. This is so that care-givers can access the tub from any of 3 sides, including the one where the sink is. The opposite side is the one with the door for transfer. Not only will this be much easier to get in and out for someone reliant on a wheelchair, but it will also enable a very easy transfer using the suspension system dolly**. There is also a floor drain on that side as well tied to the recirculating shower***.

Enabling this level of self care and care-giver ease is very rare, and therefore worth the additional financial cost. Most of us that are more mobile-able take for granted the luxury of being able to shower or take a bath, not only for convenience but the significant mental health benefits.

The fact that the water in this house will be unparalleled in terms of its purity also means that the steam generated in the bathroom will have far fewer contaminants, keeping the indoor air at a higher quality.

This approach is not only much safer – it’s also something that has long been out of reach for many people with mobility challenges. Bathing and showering can be too risky for them and their caregivers, largely because they only have consistent access to non-accessible bathrooms like the one shown in this image of Ron’s current setup. These are the types of facilities typically found in apartments that people with mobility impairments can afford when relying on state subsistence benefits. While programs do exist to support modifications even in rental units, landlords are often unwilling to allow them, or the small square footage and other architectural limitations make renovations cost-prohibitive.

Links to:
ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE
DONATION NOTE
AUTOMATION NOTE

Ramboland is a universal design and community health demonstration project and living laboratory. This site is it's digital twin. It is, and always will be in a state of becoming, like it's real-world twin. The twin's will be increasing integrated with each other and into educational programs, through onsite sensors, data streams, bioregional digital twins, human reporting, and mixed reality and large-language-model (AI) interfaces. Among many other things these will spread the word about the higher possibilities for our built environments to produce living and economic value, and support the health and wealth generation of our most neglected and abused communities. Please, join team Rambo... integrate it into your learning and teaching, donate, explore, contact us, partner, and post about it!

Goal: Operate within the sites natural energy budget, and produce a surplus of renewable energy to share with neighbors

Since air conditioning (cooling) caught on in the U.S., designers of our buildings have largely ignored the effects of sunlight and wind on them, and as an industry and culture we've mostly lost touch with ways of not only reducing unwanted heat gains in Summer and losses in Winter, but conversely also don't typically consider or know how to maximize the beneficial inverse of these factors.

Surrounding massing of buildings, trees, topography, and
other structures are of course also key considerations. If there is or even may eventually be a large mass that blocks the sunlight to the south of the building, the southern windows won't be able to catch direct sunlight to gain more heat in cold months.

Surrounding elements can also be used to great advantage also. For example trees that drop their leaves in cold months will let sunlight through to reach the buildings and heat them, while they're fully leafed out canopies create shade and cooler microclimates underneath them in the warmer months. This makes them a great contributor to energy efficiency when they are located to the south, east, and west of the building. Coniferous trees which maintain their vegetation year round are very helpful in blocking cold winds from the NW direction in the Winter, and hot sun to the east and west, and even the north near the Summer Solstice.

The intention is that it be a way for primarily the residents already living nearby to gain significant ownership (legal ownership ideally), in the systems we’re creating that will net

The washer/dryer unit is placed in the mechanical room for convenience, and shortens pipe length from treatment systems to all fixtures and appliances using treated rain for washing and irrigation. This will also slightly post/pre-heat return air before it is exhausted through an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) or cycled back into the house. This is also creating a warmer pocket of air on the northern wall, and is what's called "waste heat capture," which is good because Lancaster will remain a "heating load dominant" climate for at least the next couple of decades.

Many are economically trapped by circumstances they're born into, and programs designed to help are setup to disqualify individuals as they begin to succeed, but before they can survive independently of that support; many in low-income, redlined, and otherwise abused communities don't know anyone personally that significantly changed their lot in life. Celebrity exceptions are statistically absurd, and studies have shown a strong, present, stable adult deeply believing in you is a key to success, and some have that, and many don't. Many adults in abused communities are absent at least a lot of the daytime, often because they must hold more than one low-income job to provide for basic physical needs (food, energy, and housing). Experience has also shown us if a person does not personally know someone in a given profession or professional pathway, they simply will not believe it is possible for them to be in it. Experience is the only thing that can overcome these beliefs which are themselves ingrained as a result of an utter, multi-generational lack of that optimistic experience. Government programs are a non-starter for many in such circumstances, who still remember times in their family histories, sometimes not long ago, that filling out a form led to the abuse. As neighborhoods in these conditions begin to receive economic development its advocates suggest simplistically that it will benefit everyone. However, rising property prices also mean rising taxes and other living expenses, and existing residents are seldom formally included in the rising tide, held to the bottom by a short chain on their anchor. The cyclical diasporas of poor are moved around our cities as the churn of investment gnaws through the edges of "good" and "bad" neighborhoods - generally this poor-displacement occurs across the span of a few generations, and then repeats. But this isn't how it works everywhere, and our lost arts of "Villaging" are not gone altogether - there is a way to regenerate a people and their places, such that even more economic value is created, and actually for all. Beware, there is a huge amount of claims in this arena, but we are committed approaches in which unconcenting displacement driven by economic development is a DEAL-BREAKER, and Ramboland is the application of some of the most innovative ideas about how this could work differently.

Yep, centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, dangerous...
Most of the food we eat, for those of us that have access to enough, is coming from far away; from mono-cropped land (land on which only one crop is grown, that is deader than deserts in many ways); bathed in petrochemicals to make up for the un-systemic, extractive methods of cultivation and the problems with pests and lack of nutrients it creates; tended by either massive machines or underpaid, desperate workers destroying their bodies by being hunched over all day, often just to send a few dollars back to poorer family in other countries; and about 40% of it is wasted either on the vine, or on the shelves, or somewhere in between; meanwhile huge populations go without sufficient access to healthy food, and we have simultaneous pandemics of obesity and hunger. Several of the species of plants being grown have been whittled down from numerous sub-species to only one or two, incredibly vulnerable to a single blight, and so heavily subsidized and relied upon that it could collapse our whole food system. And the animals involved are mostly treated like machines or plants, and live miserable, tortuously painful and short lives that resemble several levels of Dante's Hell, and are themselves extremely vulnerable to viruses and other infections and disease, and for that reason and to maximize their productivity are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, many of which make their way into our food and the water bodies via their excretions being washed by rainwater runoff into the water bodies from which we draw our drinking water.

It is centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, inhumane, brutal, and maybe if that were all in the name of the economic thriving of the people that rely on it throughout that overall chain there would be some kind of argument for protecting our agriculture's current form from reform. But it is squeezing family and small businesses, and primarily benefitting already wealthy subsets of our population, and perhaps also some of the retirement plans of our hardworking citizens through pension funds on the stock market being tied up in the transnational corporations running most of it. But who would want their money in such a fragile and grim investment?

And what if it were all unnecessary, and a faster-than-we-think transition that left no one behind were possible? And what if that created far more overall wealth, security, and health for all species. We're not alone in not only believing in this, but testing it and proving it.

As with the more public living/dining/kitchen/guest room, we wanted the bedroom first to be optimal in terms of accessibility and health effects, then second efficient in terms of space. Like the more public side of the wall, this room must not only be a medically well-equipped but homey bedroom, it also must be an entertainment space, dressing area, and an exercise room. While we did some tricky things with convertible furniture in the more public room, but in this room we simply hung the entertainment system (TV, and HDMI streaming product, and a small soundbar with a great wireless headphone connection) from the roof/ceiling with some basic, inexpensive, but safe and strong hardware. We will likely add a single-size murphy bed as well, in case the queen sized one in the office nook is not sufficient for all the guests on a given night, or in the event that
the caregiver needs to be in the same room for some overnights.

As with our split cooktop (link to vignette) our design team, including our accessible equipment advisor, have come up with an approach to some of the appliances, which we think will increase accessibility for more folks. By placing two half-height appliances together –one above and one below a height adjustable counter section –, the full size microwave, and an oven can both become highly accessible while using up minimal space.
When the counter is raised a person using a wheelchair could also pull in under the oven, and likely reach both appliances, with really easy access to the oven. When the pair are lowered the whole way to a point at which the oven is on the floor, the microwave could be all the way down to under counter height, and easily accessed from the front, or by someone in a wheelchair who has pulled in beside it under the sink.

Links to:
ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE
DONATION NOTE
AUTOMATION NOTE

Extended ramp and pier enable both accessibility and a diverse range of accessible viewing positions for those reliant on wheelchairs.

"Starts, growth, upgrade, teach, eat.”

The Ramboland “Fooding” System consists of the Greenhouse, used mainly for plant starts, the raised beds, used for plant growth, as well as the orchard, vertical screens, indoor green roofs, and outdoor green roofs – all on site. Ramboland’s on site “Fooding” System will produce X times of the produce needed for the occupants of the house. The garage will be used for food processing like jarring etc, and surplus food can be stored, sold, or help feed community members. The site is just part of what we consider the “Fooding” System however, as partners like DECA, YIMBY urban farming efforts, and other future collaborations and farming opportunities will create what we imagine to be a resilient system that can feed not only partners and YIMBY residents, but help bring healthy, affordable, and nutritious food to the entire community.

Greenhouse, raised beds, orchard, garage, vertical screens, indoor green roofs, outdoor green roofs, DECA, and beyond

As water changes phase from liquid to gas, when it reaches the right combination of temperature and relative humidity in the air around it, it absorbs a bit of additional energy from adjacent molecules. This causes a cooling effect, which is why we sweat too cool ourselves, and many other living beings do similar things. It's also why a forest always feels a bit cooler than less vegetated areas nearby; their canopies are actually usually hotter than a "natural" area without trees, but thanks to the shade and this evaporative cooling effect, the area under the canopy is often cooler, so generally speaking: vegetation has a cooling effect on an area. Swamp coolers also take advantage of this, spraying a mist into a space. They are among the simplest of active cooling systems, simply using a pump and a fan, and some water. Luckily most times of year we'll have more water than we need thanks to our large rainwater treatment and storage systems, and the projected increase in total annual water arriving in fewer, bigger rain events.

This is a great example of the wacky, creative contortions we find ourselves in when we audaciously step into extremely aggressive goals with a world-class team, working from regenerative thinking and integrative principles. Several of these ideas fly directly in the face of longstanding environmental movement dogma, so we invite you to not reject or accept these ideas before really considering them in terms of their effects, and what paradigms and assumptions you are sitting in as you do so.

Research (get from Noah Zallen at Introba) and projects are indicating that energy microgrids can achieve "islandable" status and produce a far smaller surplus of energy if they have massive and dynamic storage in the form of EV's that are consistently connected to them via two-way chargers. We have wanted to provide a wheelchair modified EV as part of this project all along. Now it may have even more purpose.

This insight from one of our energy engineers (Noah Zallen at Introba) triggered a set of unexpected addtional ideas with one of our civil engineers (Jim Remlin with Sherwood Design Engineers). What if we helped our YIMBY program that expanded the systems approaches to neighbors's yards could jump across streets using the EV. What if instead of direct piping from neighbors' roofs to our cisterns, we placed rain barrels at YIMBY houses on other blocks in this and other low-income neighborhoods? It could be calculated based on rainfall and roof collection areas when those barrels would be full. The EV could bring an empty barrel, and swap it for the full one, and take that water to one of our partner's sites, DECA City Farms probably, where additional food production was occurring and there may be additional water needs, or just a preference rain with some extra goodies in it plants will like, and no chlorine they won't like. Having dropped off several full rain barrels the EV van with a liftgate would be empty and able to haul crops from the other farm to either locations where canning, jarring, pickling, etc could occur, or directly to a sales point or a free distribution point like a food bank, church, park, or community center.

This torque-intensive, low-milage journey is a perfect fit for the strengths of EV's, and it would likely return to its charger at Ramboland with a lot of remaining battery charge, which if it the nanogrid decided it made sense for economic or energy resilience reasons, could power the house or charge its batteries or those batteries placed in neighboring houses to prevent refrigerated food loss or medical device power loss during a blackout.

Likewise, the EV's could actually deliver charged batteries from energy surplus producing sites, to energy deficit suffering YIMBY partners as well.

We have the utmost respect and admiration for educators, and several of us have specific educators from the Lancaster area we credit with being fundamental to the directions we took in life. Many of them would say that the system is working, or at least not well enough. And a lot of that has to do with the fact it is stuck in a few structures and principles that are not conducive to evoking the essence and potential of learners (what education should really be about, as opposed to cramming data into skulls). In addition to this data obsession, we are also stuck in idea that we should remove learners from their systems, stuff them in buildings, pull apart the systems in the abstract; as opposed to embedding learning how to interact and be a part of the systems of our communities while we engage in their health. We are pulling the energy of our young and others out of the systems that need that energy the most, and attempting to indoctrinate them to use automated "thoughting" rather than increase thinking prowess and capacity. The primary instruments of these education systems are pat memorization, enclosure & fragmentation / reductive methods, and with obedience as a prerequisite for being able to impose this.

The kitchen will be a demonstration both of the best accessibility products and creative ways of arranging them to maximize their usability for as many users as possible; products like pull-down upper cabinets, height adjustable counters, sink, and appliances, and a wheelchair pull-in space between all of them, as well as space to add an upper refrigeration unit should Ron or other visitors or residents wish it to be available to those that can reach those higher levels. The induction cooktop will be embedded in the height adjustable island, with prep space between the two pairs of burners to improve usability by those preparing foods from a wheelchair, minimizing the need to maneuver the chair repeatedly while moving food and cookware onto and off of the safe induction heat surfaces.

Links to:
ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE
DONATION NOTE
AUTOMATION NOTE

Triple Pane Windows minimize energy losses through the envelope, compared to code minimum windows. Our Tilt-turn windows also seal better than more traditional double-hung windows, and allow us to open windows facing downward to pull in prevailing winds from the south in shoulder seasons, and release it upward through windows that open up on the north wall, as warming air passes through space during cross-ventilation.

Windows on the south side allow high levels of solar heat gain because window sills, headers, and roof overhang relative geometries ensure the sun only reaches these windows in cold months, when we want the heat gain. In those months the sun angles are lower, and can get under the roof overhang to pass into the house and assist with heating it, reducing the burden on the mechanical heating systems. These windows still have a very low U-value to insulate well, however. Conversely, windows on the other 3 sides have both low U-values (insulate well) and low SCGC (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient), so they reject solar heat gain in the warmer months when we can't prevent the sun from reaching them. However the house has also been shaped and oriented such that we have far more southern exposure than east or west, because again, the southern exposure doesn't receive heat in the warm months, and does in the cold months. Conversely the minimized east and west wall sizes do the opposite of what you want them to; they gain heat in the Summer and don't in the winter, because the Sun rises farther northeast of the house and has more time to heat up the eastern side of the house in the Summer, and likewise spends more time heating up the western side of the house as it sets, which is also generally when the ambient temperatures are highest (afternoon).

In a healthy village...
resources are not taken for granted. Let alone contaminated and cast aside. The combination of having plenty of energy (whatever forms that takes, elbow grease, flowing water, solar radiation, the heat of the Earth herself) and the awareness of the water demands of the maximized healthy abundance in the hyper-local biome, makes the water falling out of the sky any obvious connector. Not only that, the familiarity with how that ecosystem relates to the hydrology, above and below, clues the citizens into the idea that rain does not skip right to the surface water bodies. The living beings take up huge amounts of it, use it for biological processes, often several, before releasing mostly vertically, through infiltration and evaporation/evapotranspiration. What if our built-infrastructures did this as well. What if we When significant storage capacity is introduced, not only is there enough water for all the biological processes in many parts of our country. There are also ways to release the water when it is in excess of needs, and without damaging systems and their members downstream.

When goals like "capture all rain, and use it multiple times on site" and "only release water vertically unless its in living being's body (mostly animals and plants that have consumed it)"

Well-intended (pun) green building principles, like reduce water use, fall away because those are based on an intention of minutely reducing the contribution to the harm of the centralized municipal water systems. In the approaches explored here there are moments in the year that more water must be used to keep the hydrologic processes in balance.

Air quality in western modernity has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Before the industrial revolution humanity had seldom (though certainly not never) produced a concentrated pollutant source consistently enough to create lasting outdoor or even indoor air quality threats or problems. Cities became incredibly polluted in the early and mid stages of industrialization, so much so that those that could live outside of them did so. Regulation and other factors that moved industry out of urban centers from urban poor, to rural poor areas, essentially diluted the contamination enough that it became somewhat less severe issues for broader areas. The Clean Air Act and its sibling Clean Water Act substantially reduced the negative impacts of industry, which had been radically disproportionately impacting poor and non-human living beings. Regulation and enforcement have continued to struggle to keep up with the propagation of new sorts of industries and their new contaminates, and other factors like corporate lobbying and politicians susceptible to it have hindered their effectiveness. But generally the arc of outdoor air quality over nearly the last century and half has been mostly a trend in the healthier direction, with ozone loss for a time, and throughout the century greenhouse gas emissions as indirect health impacts of air contamination steadily rising.

In the mid to late stages of industrialization our industries were producing new chemicals for household and other products at a rate well beyond what testing, medical and health analysis could keep pace with. Fashion trends in architecture and interior design at times exacerbated this, while health and green building rating systems at least pointed the way to often cost-effective avoidance of indoor health threats from products and materials, albeit without really moving the bell-curve of building industry practice all that much. It would be fair to say that have substantially impacted product and material manufacturing, leveraging the PR and marketing motives of building product manufacturers, though greenwashing still runs rampant. Much of these
efforts fall short of proper prioritization and accurate technical considerations however, and the air chemistry being brought to bear on Ramboland is rarified air, both literally and figuratively (sorry, couldn't resist).

By 1. maintaining a simple material palette, 2. maximizing material reuse, 3. being highly critical of chemical content in all products and materials selected, 4. resorting to new materials only when necessary and via local and scientifically validated and/or certified content, as well as 5. introducing filtration and other treatment within rooms and sometimes within HVAC systems (whichever is more effective in terms of air quality, and often also hard costs, and addressing other air quality issues like temperature and humidity as well) Ramboland will have amongst the most pristine air of any building. This 'optimization sequence' ensures maximum performance and minimal cost. Ongoing air quality testing will add insight and prompt responses to air quality impacts materials and products introduced by occupants (clothes, accessories, food, and other belongings) as well as activities like cooking, bathing, cleaning, and respirating, further strides will be made in controlling for and maintaining super healthy air quality beyond design and construction stages, in a way that can be accessed by education systems and the public at large.

Centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, dangerous...
Hubs we call power-plants are a few vulnerable dots on the map, struggling to keep the entire cardiovascular-like system of the energy grid glowing despite huge swings in production and demand, and the increasingly frequent natural disasters. For the most part these strained juggernauts either belch out toxic emissions, and/or emissions that are already beginning to skew the balances of our current biosphere, or they are producing types of waste that will remain a threat to a life longer than any of our current languages have been used on Earth - so creating signage to warn of the peril they present is next to impossible.

The desperate or vengeful have singular nodes in the mostly dirty and dangerous power-plants they can attack to threaten so many at once. Not only huge regions, but the region supported by each juggernaut is limited in its ability to support any others, unless we're lucky enough for the disruptions in one to align with moderate or low stressed in nearly all the others.

These juggernauts, and the technology they are based upon enabled incredible progress, and luxury, and wealth. And if that arc is to continue we must adapt the system, to allow the juggernauts to retire in honor, for the workers that support them to be honored and thanked, and supported in their transition to other roles. The surpluses of the new pattern can allow this to happen.

The house is oriented to optimize sun angles, penetrating or not, depending on time of year and day*. But the house is also designed to account for prevailing winds.

""Prevailing winds"" is a term for the direction wind tends to come from, and in this climate they have tended to come from the Northwest in the Winter (when we don't generally want to be hit by cold air), and the Southwest in the Summer (when we often can benefit from some cross-ventilation and cooling).

So the house is designed with blocking the northwesterly cold winter prevailing winds in mind, with additional layers of vegetation, insulation, walls, trees, and pockets of air**.

Likewise, the house is designed to scoop up the southwesterly winds in warmer months, so when the temperature is within certain ranges the windows can be opened, and the movement of the air can create whats called ""expanded thermal comfort."" This is a term for the effect of more air molecules hitting your skin and absorbing some heat from it thanks to the air moving. This increases the rate the body can release heat energy, and thus requires the air to be less cool than when it's not moving as much. Ceiling fans also offer this benefit but use up some electricity to do so (though less than air conditioning).

When early on in our design process the addition of a greenhouse was being considered, we were concerned this might jeopardize our cross ventilation because the greenhouse would block some of that southwesterly winds in some of the warmer months of the year. So we did a type of analysis called Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This technology has been used for a longer period in automobile and aeronautical engineering and design so that cars and planes could be made more aerodynamic. The old fashioned way to do it is to place a model of the geometry of the object being designed in a wind tunnel (literally a room with fans at both ends to create high air speed in one direction), and then smoke being blown blowing in the fan so that the airflow is visible to the observers. CFD software allows us to assess our design in a virtual model without building a physical one yet.

Somewhat to our surprise, the introduction of the greenhouse created whats called a Venturi Effect. This is the phenomenon in which sending a fluid (usually air) through a compressed space causes it to speed up, like a nozzle on a hose, or the tapered or fluted cooling towers and smoke stacks on factories and combustion-based power plants. The breezeway between the house and the greenhouse is angled enough towards the prevailing southwesterly winds, that it captures enough wind and compresses, that that wind is actually accelerated into the house a little bit more than if the greenhouse weren't there.
Using CFD created a lot more confidence that we could not only add the additional complexity of a diverse and high tech food system to the project without sacrificing other performance goals, but in fact enhanced our achievement of those goals. The house will actually be able to use active, electricity consuming air conditioning a little bit less, because our breezeway pushes the air a little bit faster into the south-facing windows in house. As the air inside heats up a bit from contact with warm human bodies and other heat sources inside the house, this will actually help it rise a bit and then more effectively be sucked out of the high-up windows on the north wall of the house. The CFD allowed us to do a lot better than the typical ""wishful thinking arrows"" designers so often use to represent how they hope the air will flow!

The split, height adjustable, and mobile island maximizes use of space, surface activity utilization and accessibility. In order to maximize human mobility in the space we have used up a lot of extra square footage for clearance for wheelchairs, etc. This is a bit at odds with our intentions around material and energy use efficiency, because the greater space requires a larger envelope, and that also yields a greater volume of air. Together these increase both the embodied energy and energy use
during its occupancy and useful life, to run mechanical systems to supplement our passive designs, to keep the air comfortable and healthy. So, we had some making up to do by optimizing space. We sought to make both of the main rooms in the house as multi-purposeful as possible.

This one piece of furniture will allow the room to function as a large kitchen, a generous dining room, a spacious living room, a social space, and often any desired combination of these. Not only is this much more convenient and "universal." but it also helps offset the extra square footage and clearances included for mobility improvements.

Altogether now: centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, dangerous...
Our power-plants and factories dump heat and toxins into water bodies, joined by hormones and pharmaceuticals from run-off from our farmland, and drawn into our water treatment plants which cannot remove all of these health threats. Our cities assure our citizens "the levels of hexavalent chromium (and a bunch of other stuff) are below EPA limits," but the recommended dosage if your doctor hasn't prescribed the pharmaceuticals at least, is zero. And the test results are at the treatment plants, while many old buildings and infrastructure, predominantly in poor neighborhoods, schools, and homes, contain additional contaminants like lead (because they haven't been updated in decades), so our most vulnerable and underserved are once again getting the worst version of the most basic resources.

Not to mention that the incredible amounts of energy that create a level of pressure in the system needed to drive flow to all our fixtures, is also both responsible and challenged by the MASSIVE losses to leakage throughout the distribution system. Other than the impacts of the energy use and the production it demands, this might one of the greatest virtues of this system, because it helps to recharge the aquifers that would otherwise be nearly completely cutoff from incoming water due to our the excessive amount of impervious surfaces in our cities - we nearly fully cap the land with hardscape.

We then contaminate all of the water we use, and send it back into the water bodies from whence it came, often without further treatment when rain overwhelms our combined sewer and stormwater systems and outflows into these natural water bodies. Then a town downstream pulls it back in to do it again. From a certain perspective, an alien one for example, it might almost seem like the purpose of the system was to contaminate the natural water bodies, and hurt the living beings throughout the system.

This was not done intentionally, and it is largely a function of unforeseen developments in our societies' growth in both size and industrialization. But it is also now a function of its human operators opposing bigger systemic shifts, and insisting on relegating coping with it to incremental bandaid solutions, to one problem at a time, usually addressed by a single technology or technique (often yet another chemical, or energy intensifying form of filtration or treatment).

All the while much cleaner water, at least in some respects, is falling on us from the sky fairly regularly in many parts of the country. We increasingly have more water than we can handle falling out of the sky some times of year, and not enough in others... if only there were a way to take the excess water from the deluges and save it for the droughts! This water has smog, bird poop, pollen, dust, etc. in it, all of which should be removed for human consumption, but that is much easier. And some of that is better to leave in for irrigation water. Whether you treat rain like the sacred, valuable resource it is, or like its a nuisance, it will be self-fulfilling prophecy. Stormwater is essentially a curse-word for rain or run-off that would not happen if we hadn't paved over almost everything.

The irony of this ignored resource literally hitting us in the face while we complain about it, and take it from what is now probably the worst stage in the same hydrologic cycle is something that can't be unseen once realized.

And again, when you sit down to pencil the math on whether blocks or districts could meet their own water needs, especially if that is tied into food systems and nano-/micro-grids producing a surplus of energy, it starts to become clear that our failure to design a compassionate and effective transition from our disastrous current approaches is the primary problem.

Nothing super innovative here, honestly. Tried and true, energy star certified under-counter freezer (left) and refrigerator (right) and dishwasher (further right, beside sink because it uses water) with a wheelchair pull-in between/beside all of them. The prep space between the two refrigeration units is set at desk height, though may be adjustable. We're leaving the space above the counter on top of the refrigerator open in case an additional refrigerator is desired, or for coffee/espresso machines, toasters, air fryer, or other small appliances.

Links to:
ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE
DONATION NOTE
AUTOMATION NOTE

Since air conditioning (cooling) caught on in the U.S., designers of our buildings have largely ignored the effects of sunlight and wind on them, and as an industry and culture we've mostly lost touch with ways of not only reducing unwanted heat gains in Summer and losses in Winter, but conversely also don't typically consider or know how to maximize the beneficial inverse of these factors.

The shape of buildings, relative to the variances in the path of the Sun throughout each day of the year, have a huge impact on the extent to which subsequent design decisions can further optimize thermal levels. In other words, these earliest decisions in building design will either make subsequent decisions highly impactful or not, with respect to energy efficiency. Even prevailing winds' impact on the surface and ability to pass through the interiors of buildings is driven by the shape and cardinal orientation of the building, which can also help or hurt how much energy needs to be spent to heat and cool the building, especially in what are called "shoulder seasons" or "shoulder months," when, if well designed, heating and cooling systems can more frequently be turned off altogether.

In a healthy village... everyone by about age 10 is acutely aware of the various citizens' needs for nutrition, their ability or lack thereof to get it for themselves, and the place's living systems' ability to provide for them all. One need not walk far to reach the extent of the land that supports all of this, greater variety provided through trade with not-too-distant other villages or districts, who appreciate their alliance.

The variety of sources and harvesting techniques create a harvesting ergonomics that is not only not detrimental to villagers physical health (due to extended repetition of movements in unmoving postures - like picking thousands of ) but actually offers a dynamic and varied exercise, especially when many crops are planted in the same area at different heights, and harvesting activity is shared.

The cycles of nature are understood as traditions and community social dynamics are woven into the processes of the land that feeds and is fed and tended by the people. Longer multi-year cycles are also understood and monitored and considered.

Our cities no longer resemble this image in the slightest, and not just because of their size or density; they are capable of this sort of performance. And they are beginning to work like this in some places. We're realizing our land, heavily fragmented and severed by imaginary boundaries, and real roads, fences, and walls, can produce a great deal of what we need if it is made whole and healthy (which is really the same thing) again.

Instead of the hubs we call power-plants being a few vulnerable dots on the map, struggling to keep the entire cardiovascular-like system of the energy grid glowing despite huge swings in production and demand, and the increasingly frequent natural disasters.... imagine instead a healthy district of living cells... each with its own glowing heart. The extensive network of the old grid remains, but has become stable and less stressed, as it now a network of sharing between the cells offering one another surpluses when repairs or occasional downtime require them to rely on each other a bit.

Each cell is not only self-sufficient in real-time but the long term as well, and produces a surplus. That surplus can be stored in the form of energy, and greater excesses than are useful can be stored in the form of monetary conversion (sales) and used to buy access or stored energy in the future, or released as dividends to its co-owners.

The desperate or vengeful no longer have singular nodes in the mostly dirty and dangerous power-plants they can attack to threaten so many. As new cells are born on the periphery of the cellular mass, or as pioneers are born initially as their own islands in other places, a new Dual-Power grid is emerging and saving the old, dirty, dangerous, vulnerable grid and its stakeholders from itself and most other possible future threats. If a cell goes down, it is surrounded by others that can prop it up as it "heals" or is otherwise repaired, and the suds formed of all these bubbles is not only not weaker, but stronger for the momentary disruption.

Attitudes towards rain as a nuisance ("stormwater" is a pejorative term) or instead as a life-giving precious blessing (rain/water) are both self-fulfilling prophecies. We pick the second attitude. Our goal is that the hydrology of the site be nearly indistinguishable from that of the temperate forest that previously occupied this site and its surroundings. To that end rainfall is collected to be stored & used to support living processes, often several of them, before leaving the site.

Smog, bird droppings, and pollen are easily removed to create pristine water without chemical hormones, pharmaceuticals, fluoride, chlorine or Cr6), while maintaining some nutrients living bodies can benefit from. Tap water with added chlorine to kill pathogens does not make great irrigation water either, because it is a biocide.

For those that have never had to worry about lateral mobility once they learned to walk, it may not be obvious why you would split a cooking range in half to put a prep space in the middle of it. Sliding back and forth laterally in a typical wheelchair is hard enough, let alone while handling sharp knives and hot pots, pans, and foods. If chefs and home cooks alike who rely on wheelchairs and can use their hands effectively can do all their prep in one position and move pots, pans, and foods on and off of induction burners without having to reach down and grab their wheels or electric chair controls to reposition over and over again, it could take a lot of the difficulty out of cooking.

Induction technology makes this easier than ever before, not to mention they are safer because the surface is not heated directly, and usually safe to the touch even immediately after or even during cooking. Most units also allow you to set an exact temperature. This is a big part of why, although some debate wages on, many of the world's most respected chefs and cooks feel that induction cooktops are the best way to go, even better than natural gas burners that introduce contaminants to the breathing zone along with the methane, which we're* finding leaks not only in our homes whether the appliances are in use or not, but throughout our cities from the gas lines. This introduces significant explosion and air quality risks, in addition to the negative environmental impacts on par or beyond any other fossil fuel**.

Links to:
ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE
DONATION NOTE
AUTOMATION NOTE

What better place to put a WIND veil than a BREEZEway?! Wind veils are beautiful, biophilic building screens that indicate the flow of air, creating liquid-like waves (which have been found to have a calming effect on humans) across the surface of the building. Not only will this be a way to create an educational element, but a way to add some beauty to a wall that was solid because of the need for energy efficiency in the greenhouse. This will help us to actually observe how accurate our CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis was, when we were concerned about the greenhouse inhibiting our carefully designed cross ventilation through the house.

For much of the design process we have planned to provide an overhead track system to support a hanging mechanism that allows Ron, visitors, and/or future residents to be comfortably suspended, and moved easily around the house to key fixtures, appliances, furniture, etc., by a caregiver or their own control interface. Accommodating this structurally and architecturally was challenging and increasing complicatedness and cost. Getting it through doors, and to all those locations was particularly challenging. We recently expanded the track idea to go throughout the entire house however, rationalizing that the track itself was not the costly part, and it even being a somewhat fun ""ride"" for some fit well with the theme park implications of the project name. And yet it was still not universal in the access it granted and getting more over-the-top than might be reasonable even for this swing-for-the-fences project. And then it occurred to us that maybe we could hang the components that actually suspend our bodies from a floor-based mobile unit, something like an engine block lift. We thought this was very clever. In what couldn't even be considered an ""ah ha"" moment, but more like a ""yeah duh"" moment, we realized these make those already. Of course they do. They can fit through doors, turn and move along on casters, change height and orientation for different fixtures, furnishings, and appliances, and more. They can be operated by motor, or caregiver elbow grease.

That said, if we're not able to get the one we want, we may still modify an engine block lift! Which might actually be cooler and cheaper, and perhaps our partners who work and learn in fabrication and robotics labs might help us make that!

Via YIMBY and partnerships with DECA City Farms and others, the pattern will spread throughout the area, via the agreement and non-monetary "buy-in" of those neighbors that wish to connect. This pattern of deep resilience, healthy and clean resources, community ownership of shared infrastructure, and innovative means of distributing those resources, grows stronger and more self-sustainability and self-directing as it grows with the consent of those it seeks to connect and serve.