Welcome to Ramboland

Ron Rambo may be responsible for more curb cuts (definition link) and ramps getting added in the City of Lancaster than any other human. As a necessary user himself, Ron has not stopped at attempting to improve his own access, but has been an activist and advocate on behalf of all folks with differing mobilities. That said, most American cities, because ADA (definition link) is structured in such a way that grandfathers (definition link) many business, city systems, and buildings into pre-ADA requirements and features, it is still very hard to get around even public areas for many citizens. We have found that many folks, even social and environmental activists, are unaware of this, thinking “that’s no longer an issue, ADA fixed that a long time ago.” In fact, as important as ADA was, it took some of the wind out of the larger movement advocating for progress in these areas, and we must continue to innovate, expanding access in not only economically and environmentally sustainable ways, but in ways that allow more of us to thrive together, in all ways, including economically. Ramboland is proving this is possible, in part by changing the scale and expanding the types of systems we combine. The synergies among energy, water, food, conveyance and mobility, and policy and financial systems are huge, but only if we can look at things differently than we’re accustomed to. Ramboland will cost less to build than Ron will need in subsistence benefits from the state, and it will self-sustain and self-expand financially. What if this was the default for how we address these things all at once.

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. 

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"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). 

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

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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).  

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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. 

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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!

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. 

In a healthy village...

…All energy capacity and needs are understood by many if not all villagers. In times and places in which energy “technologies” amounted only to caloric human efforts, wood burning, and even onsite coal fired furnaces, this meant that villagers were sustainably managing their own usage as well as forest and other fuel source systems within a short travel distance so they never ran out of fuel. Tolerances of much broader temperature swings or extremes were also usually much higher. Architecture almost always accounted for solar angles, prevailing winds, obstructions of both, opportunities to utilize both in energy production / storage, like thermal mass adobe, cross ventilation, stack-effect “roof” openings, evaporative cooling from water bodies and plants, and more. All of these systems and techniques were both teaching tool and subject at once, so that physics, village management, and sacred elements were all learned about simultaneously. 

In addition to restoring these “passive” techniques to contemporary construction and management of our habitats, there can be modern American expressions of these elegant and ubiquitously understood vernacular approaches to energy. In a modern American urban neighborhood going through self-directed re-villaging (instead of externally driven economic development, and the gentrification and displacement that almost always comes with it) would likely involve a Community Development Corporation or another candidate entity to serve as a genuinely well-intended positive change agency. This entity would first organize neighbors to be aware, informed, and capable to self-direction, if they are not already (many neighborhoods are, and many are not). 

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Next focus could shift beyond typical economics-only driven real estate developments that lay bare the landscapes of the neighborhood, vulnerable to vampiric developers who simply want to buy low, sell high, and never really be present in the Place. Instead the shift would be to initiatives like establishing a network of upgraded roofs covered in solar PV, as an extension of already common but underutilized weatherization programs. Furthermore, community held landtrusts or even POA’s (Property Ownership Associations) or a new entity type called an LSA (Land Stewardship Association) which honors the reality of land-personhood, as well as the need to interface with the current paradigm of land ownership. Regardless of entity type, these would establish the permanency and resident ownership and dividend access for managing “central plants” at the core of the block or in vacant rowhomes or lots,, to which upgraded solar roofs would all be tied. Ultimately these manage surpluses of energy across the block to expand to block-centralized heating and cooling, and other beneficial energy uses like pumping rainwater for collection, treatment, and distribution from roofs and even street surfaces for direct distribution of higher-than-utility quality water to homes and agriculture on all utilizable surfaces. This “nanogrid” (because even at block scale this is smaller than most microgrids) would eventually become part of a cellularly-networked mesh of nano-grids connected by physical cabling if power company franchise rights were frozen or redistributed to the CDC’s or RCO’s, or via EV battery exchange choreography (sounds crazy, but transitioning from entrenched, damaging, extractive, cynical systems can involve some pretty counter-intuitive solutions), especially when topography allows for heavy transport of batteries and water downhill, and lighter harvested crops back uphill.  

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This early establishment of stable, clean, cheap, community managed energy systems creates some resilience amongst existing residents, and establishes steady revenue for an entity, directed by the residents, which can then self-development and/or self-manage others utilizing many alternatives to the typical vampiric approaches to toxic, un-durable and unendurable, intrusive versions of bricks and mortar or bricks and sticks physical homes and other infrastructure developments discussed throughout the rest of this file. 

Read more about energy works in most American cities here. 

The reality is that energy in most American cities is centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, and dangerous. 

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Hubs we call power-plants are a few vulnerable dots on the map, nodes in a system they would collapse by failing,  struggling to keep the entire cardiovascular-like system of the energy grid glowing despite huge swings in production and demand, increasingly frequent natural disasters, terrorism, and tactical warfare. For the most part these strained juggernauts either belch out toxic emissions, and/or emissions that are already beginning to thermally skew the balances of our current atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, etc., or they are producing types of waste that will remain a threat to Life longer than any of our current languages have been used on Earth - demanding the impossible task of creating signage to warn of the peril they present that will be definitely understandable hundreds of thousands or millions of years from now is next to impossible. 

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So the desperate, despotic, and/or vengeful have singular nodes in the form of mostly dirty and dangerous power-plants they can attack to threaten so many at once, and even the system as a whole. Not only are the regions each power plant serves huge, 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 stresses in nearly all the others.

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Along with all these downsides, these juggernauts and the technology they are based upon enabled incredible progress, 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. 

Read more about how energy COULD work in most American cities here. 

In a healthy village… there tends to be nested patterns of self-sufficiency and exchange with the larger nested collectives. I.E. individual “household” or nuclear families produce much of what they like and need most in their own share of the area. They usually produce a surplus of this, and then trade with neighbors and/or extended family. The core of their diet usually comes from community efforts in which shared food forests and/or fields, and or hunting provides a lot of the base. In some cultures almost all of the production, including the vast variety of flavoring, nutrition, etc. comes from community food systems, in which many or even a majority of the community participates in “cultivating.” These food systems are not exceptions to otherwise “natural” ecology, but a deeply interwoven and interdependent part of it. The ecology of the place is healthier, not hampered, thanks to the humans tending to their own needs for nutrition, medicine, and the pleasures of cuisine, and in full awareness of the balances and dynamics in that ecosystem. 

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Jumping scale, because every square yard of land is as different from the next as it is one across the continent (Gerald Wilhelm), villages also often have specializations in certain medicines, foods, and cuisines, which creates unique value for their trading with other villages, just as the families do within the village. One can see how the massive scale overspecialization of modern agribusiness is a form of this pattern run amuck, and reaching a scale that this pattern is not appropriate to.  

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Read more about how food works in most American cities here.

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Altogether now: centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, dangerous...

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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.

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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 benefiting already wealthy subsets of our population, and perhaps also some of the retirement plans of our hard working 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?

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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.

Read more about how food COULD work in most American cities here. 

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 an 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? 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.

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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)" become guiding principles, well-intended (pun) green building principles, like reducing 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.

Read more about how water works in most American cities here. 

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Yep, also centralized, loss-heavy, fragile, dirty, inequitable, unhealthy, dangerous...

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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 coincidentally prescribed the some of the same pharmaceuticals, is zero. And the test results are mostly from 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 water 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 be one of the greatest virtues of this system, because it helps to recharge the aquifers that would otherwise be nearly completely cut off from incoming water due to the excessive amount of impervious surfaces in our cities - we have nearly fully cap the land with hardscape.

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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 causes 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.

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This was not done intentionally, and it is largely a function of unforeseen developments in our societies' growth in both size and industrialization.  Like our power plants these systems enabled great progress, but that is no reason to ignore their shortcomings and entrench in their current layout, structures, and technologies. If previous generations had thought that way we wouldn’t have had the progress we have. So the lack of progress and the current harm occurring is also now a function of its human operators and corporate and political stewards opposing bigger systemic shifts. We’re being told we must be relegated to coping with these issues with incremental band-aid solutions, 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).

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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 several 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! There is, storage. This water has smog, bird poop, pollen, dust, etc. in it, all of which should be removed for human consumption, and only some of which should be removed for irrigation. Removing all of that is much easier than a lot of what is in our municipally supplied water. Whether you treat rain like the sacred, valuable resource it is, or like its a nuisance, it will be a 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.

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The irony of this ignored resource literally hitting us in the face while we complain about it, and take it instead from what is probably the worst stage in the same hydrologic cycle to do so (rivers) 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 storage and natural treatment approaches were occurring within the core of blocks, in many regions of the U.S. and world, the numbers more than work. 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.

Read more about how water COULD work in most American cities here. 

Money, like all mediums (water, blood, etc.) only yields value when its moving. So a dollar that cycles once gains a user access to one unit of value… and so that community gains one unit of value exchange. But if that same dollar moves around 12 times before it leaves, it yields 12 units of value exchange in that community, arguable 12x’ing its worth. 

Average time a dollar spends in American urban neighborhoods, and how high quantity of local exchange can get. 

In a healthy village…

the Velocity of Money or Money Circulation, and/or Velocity of Barter is very high. There is an entire thriving ecosystem of goods and services, with little needed from beyond the village, and at least as much of the bespoke local products being sought after by outsiders, bringing in more money and variety of bartered goods to the Place. This supports not only material needs, but Essence and personality based specialties, interests, hobbies, etc. (aka some mental and emotional needs).

Some previously redlined neighborhoods, or otherwise passively and/or actively impoverished places still have some locally owned shops and eateries, which increase the Money Circulation in the neighborhood minimally. These are either exploitive businesses (like check cashing or vice selling), or conversely, lauded destinations for folks in many neighborhoods to travel to (e.g. a great bakery, pizza shop, etc.), and/or are hanging on by a thread financially. 

In economically thriving American city neighborhoods, these locally owned and operated shops and eateries are the norm, and nonlocal chains are less common, or even the exception. This is no coincidence. In cultures and places where Value Circulation (Money Circulation concept + other forms and mediums of value) there has almost always been a explicit, serious effort to cultivate value creation and asset diversity within the place or culture. Sometimes this goes perhaps too far, and becomes overly insular, and supports and is supported by racism and other forms of xenophobia. But in multicultural communities there might be no limit to the benefit of driving further towards this bias for curated, locally owned operations (for-proit or otherwise) that represent the fullest possible inventory of goods and services. In some places this is even building upon rich ecosystems of retail, and of course art, to extend into micro-industry that produces goods that would otherwise have to come from a big company elsewhere (clothing, shoes, other accessories, furniture. 

The residential real estate counterparts to this regenerative retail ecosystem is discussed above in the other sections, and below in the demonstrative design concepts! 

This residential and retail homegrown approach, and the socio-economic and cultural “playbooks” being described here represents a version of what Silvie Gallier Howard called “sprout up” economics. In contrast to trickle down.

Read more about how neighborhood economics work in most American cities here. 

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Many are economically trapped by circumstances they're born into and programs, designed to help, are set up 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 that 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 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 the 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 people and their places, such that even more economic value is created –actually for all. Beware, there is a huge amount of claims in this arena, but we are committed to approaches in which non-consenting 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. 

Read more about how neighborhood economies COULD work in most American cities here. 

In a healthy village...

children are not stuffed into boxes to learn things, or at least that's not the only or primary way learning happens. In a healthy village most of the youth's learning, and the most important sorts of learning, happen in community, and with several other generations. And they are likewise teaching their elders some things, regenerating the learnings and keeping the elders from settling too firmly into attitudes and positions.

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The often adopted/appropriated concept of 7 generation thinking has been misunderstood by even well-intended descendents of settlers. It does not (just) mean thinking about the implications of our decisions on our descendents 7 generations in the future. Nor does it just mean we consider 3 behind us, our own, and 3 ahead of us, though apparently this is closer. Apparently it refers to the number of generations we should each encounter in our lifetime. When we're born we might be lucky enough to know great-grandparents and others from their generation; our elders' elders. But we may also live long enough and be lucky enough in other ways to meet our great-grandchildren. Tending to life-wisdom across 4 generations at any given moment creates resilience in that wisdom. Resilience unavailable when our elders are relegated to only being with each other, often in medical buildings they'd rather not be in, and our children's energy is pulled out of our community most waking hours, so they can learn, mostly data, and not how systems work or how to understand living systems, and step into their working.

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We are going through ridiculous business model contortions and creativity in order to enable evolved approaches that not only allow a reintegration of our generations in western modernity, but also weave learning back into that shared-presence, and some technological and programmatic crutches for them to all step into co-learning about both the timeless systems, and rapidly evolving modern ones alike.

Read more about how education works in most American cities here. 

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 the 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. 

Read more about how education COULD work in most American cities here. 

Recent innovations in hot water heaters have led not only to a more widely available energy efficient option than typical gas fired or even old electric water heater technology. But hot water heat pumps have also introduced a new source of cool air. As these units produce hot water buy pulling energy out of the air, they expel cooled air. In the winter this can be a bit of  problem, because you’re effectively placing a small air conditioner, usually in your basement, during months you’re already spending too much energy on heating. We will exhaust this cooled air to the outside of the building in these months. But precooling the air in our mechanical room in the warmer months is a benefit. 

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Coupled with a few hot water solar panels on the roof, not only will we be able to produce all the hot water we need using very little energy, but we are also investigating a warmwater, subsurface irrigation system to supplement heating in the greenhouse and even extend growing seasons in outdoors raised beds. One of the many living-lab experiments we’ll be doing early on. 

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(Image source: DOE)

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. 

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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**.  

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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.

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Storage can be a serious challenge in spaces with high levels of mobility accessibility. Limitations on what can be reached by various folks is not only limited, but often mutually exclusive. I.e. some folks can't reach things down low easily, others can't reach things up high, both for various reasons. Universal Design is an aspiration, a north star that perhaps can never truly be reached, but it can get us a lot of progress in checking ourselves against it, and repeatedly asking ""how can we make this better for more people?"" 

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The kitchen at Ramboland is packed with examples of this, one of our favorites being the pull-down cabinets. There are several versions of this on the market; some allow you to pull the ""guts"" of the cabinet straight down out of the bottom of the cabinet carcass (that's what they call the outer enclosure of cabinets), so that the bottommost shelf in an upper cabinet can be the whole down at counter height, or perhaps even lower if the counter itself can also drop. Others allow those guts to both come down and forward. Still others bring the entire carcass and its guts the whole way down and to the front edge of the counter. 

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"Recirculating shower saves 90% of energy and 85% of water compared to code. High-flow shower head for convenience and quality of life.

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Many do not fully appreciate some of the luxuries and coping mechanisms we have in our society, nor realize that many don’t have safe or frequent access to them. For example, showers. In Ron’s current subsistence level living situation, it is unsafe for him to take a shower as well as it is unsafe for his caregivers to assist him during a shower.  Because of that, he relies mostly on sponge bathing, as do millions of other people with limited mobility. The shower installed at Rambolandwill allow Ron (and ultimately other users) to have access to a full soaker tub with a door that allows a suspension system to carry him safely and conveniently in and out of it. The tub is positioned in such a way that caregivers can reach in from 3 of the 4 sides, a rare convenience. The bathroom will also feature a high-flow shower head next to the bathtub that he can enter independently in a wheelchair or with support of the suspension system and enjoy a better shower experience. 

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How does this comply with our other environmental goals? Well, the showering system we are installing is called a recirculating shower. Despite its high-flow rainforest shower head, it saves almost 90% of both water and energy compared to a code compliant 2.5 gallon per minute showerhead. This is because unlike standard showers that lose all the water and heat after it passes over our bodies and down the drain only once, water in this system will recirculate about 7 times before being drained. This is possible because the shower has built-in treatment, filtration, and temperature regulators, which also ensure cleaner water than typical tap water and allow for a perfectly controlled water temperature, making them safer in terms of burns and cold shocks – a greater risk with users that have speech challenges. 

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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. 

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Links to:

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DONATION NOTE

AUTOMATION NOTE

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. 

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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***. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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Links to:

ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE

DONATION NOTE

AUTOMATION NOTE

The height adjustable sink, which uses flex hose to allow fixture movement, provides a wheelchair pull-in space beside the adjacent appliances regardless of which height those are set at, and of course access to the sink itself.

The sink will also have an additional metered faucet control. Metered faucets are those activated usually by pushing down a knob and which then run for a specific amount of time. The button or knob slowly pops up stopping water flow when it has returned to its deactivated original position. This metered control will not control a faucet that pours into this sink however. This is a manual backup for the

irrigation system for the indoor green roof (link to vignette) just beyond the top of the kitchen wall, which caps the mechanical room behind it. The primary faucet will be a sensor activated basic kitchen faucet. We will likely also provide a typical sprayer that can also be held and activated by a button on the sprayer head.

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Links to:

ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE

DONATION NOTE

AUTOMATION NOTE

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. 

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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.

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. 

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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! 

There is a convenience lavatory/sink in the bedroom as well – this is just that, convenience. Especially for care-givers convenience in having rapid access to a sink and faucet in the bedroom for drinking or cleanup needs. Like the kitchen sink and faucet, an additional control is included here to manage the low amounts of irrigation the indoor green roofs in both spaces will require – which will also assist in dust control on those horizontal out of reach areas, and the green roofs will help to moderate air contaminants, oxygen levels, and humidity levels, not to mention provide a biophilic (Insert definition link) psychological benefit.

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Links to:

ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE

DONATION NOTE

AUTOMATION NOTE

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.

36 inch wide doors, per the minimum requirements of ADA (link to reference), are what we call barely legal. They're just good enough, not great. Someone relying on a wheelchair can easily still lose some knuckle skin going through a 36" wide door if they're self-propelling. Because they are so common, standard doorways have an economy of scale (link to definition), and so they are cheaper than most other sizes. Despite this we felt it made sense to take a stand and specify 40" wide doors everywhere at Ramboland. Economies of scale only occur when something is legally standardized, or sells enough because of demand. Let's drive up demand for safer, better doors. 

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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 people  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. 

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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! 

Having already designed a building envelope that allows wind and sun to do more of the cooling and heating when its needed most, and as little as possible when its not wanted, the remaining heating and cooling loads (link to definition) are quite small. This “downsizing” or “right-sizing” (link to definition) allows significant cost savings, and depending on how a project decides to think about it, it could be considered to create an allowance that can be spent to get more expensive technologies - which could still cost less than typical because they’re so much smaller. 

And then of course there is the elephant in the bathroom – the toilet. Although we will not be going with a $6,000 Japanese toilet, but are providing one with excellent geometry for caregiver and user ease, as well as either a built-in or bolt-on bidet and tushy dryer, which are becoming readily and affordably available in the market, and a great help to everyone involved.  

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In addition to all of those benefits, the plumbing system is set up so that the toiler flushes greywater (insert definition link), which essentially eliminates the negative impacts of water demand for toilet flushing. 

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A custom designed pedal mechanism as a second option for flushing (which will simply pull down on the dual-flush flush-valve handle) improves hygiene when usable, by allowing hand contact with the fixture to be avoided. In some cases it will also improve accessibility when 1. a user has the ability to step on it but not otherwise operate a flush mechanism higher up, or 2. a user of a wheelchair can maneuver it to run over the pedal. 

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Links to:

ACCESSIBILITY PROGRESS NOTE

DONATION NOTE

AUTOMATION NOTE

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. 

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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). 

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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.

This is a great example of the outside-the-box, 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 their context and in terms of their effects, and what paradigms and assumptions you are sitting in as you do so. 

With the help of our accessibility automation and IOT advisor**** we will be tech-enabling as much of this as off-the-shelf AI assistants and IOT allows, but with manual operation overrides/alternatives whenever possible as well, for the sake user preferences and

instances of system failure (power or connective loss).

Unless we get these systems donated for all needs, our plan is to demonstrate and test a variety each one of these features, and highlight them over time, sharing our findings in blogs, social media posts, and in our educational materials with local and worldwide education partners. 

      If you're a product manufacturer that wishes to donate your product for one or more unit or typology, and thus be highlighted in all future press and education about the project, you can contact us at the project email listed on the website. Likewise, if you'd like to sponsor one or the whole array of these innovations, feel free to contact us. 

The passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was a watershed moment and has been critical to especially new buildings and infrastructure systems becoming more supportive to more levels and types of mobility. But the victory did seem to result in a waning of effort to keep making progress, especially with regard to considering other sorts of capability differences amongst our population. That said, in the last 10 or so years there have been many product innovations and a rekindling of the discussion about to move toward universal support of all humans, and even other living beings, in the design movement's discourse.