CUSTOM HOMES ///ONLINE PLANS ///ENERGY EFFICIENCY ///ABOUT/// HOME
I work with clients online via email and website as well as in person and often travel to remote homesites for consultation. So, do leave a message or an email.
FRAME & PANEL PLANS: Standard Framing Home Designs to higher energy efficiency standards and additional detailing options for SIPI or other panels, wood stud, steel stud framing, post & beam. AgriBoard is a new strawboard panel. Framing is kept to an absolute minimum, in splining, I-joists, beams and posts only, treating timbers in respect to a tree's sacrifice. Mass is required to stabilize temperature differentials instead of relying upon instant conditioning. I certainly consider Frame Homes to be akin to tents, yurts and lavaluu or tipi structures with skins, unable to store heat in thermal mass, excepting earth or other masonry hybrid auxiliary passive trombe walls as mass structure itself.
ADOBE HOME PLANS: Traditional Southwest Adobe Home Designs, Modern Adobe Design, and Hybrid Adobe Combinations using adobe as thermal mass.
BLOCK BUILDING: Interchangeable with some hand-cast brick methods...
E-CRETE AUTOCLAVED BLOCK HOME PLANS: Long known in Europe, autoclaved concrete block infuses concrete with insulating air cells, thus creating a lightweight structure that is also high in R-factor and high in sound-proofing. No studs, rebar is minimal, easy to handle, pre-mix polymer bond mortar.
RASTRA ICF FORM PLANS: Rastra™ Form Home Designs introduce new method of concrete construction poured into 4'x10' forms made of cellulose-styro bead-clay, reinforced with rebar in specified columns and rows, finish in direct stucco or plaster. Rastra is now called Apex.
ICF BLOCK FORM HOME PLANS: ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) are similar to Rastra® but, molded from polystyrene foam. Some are similar to standard block, some are panelized with reinforcing grids pre-placed within. Haener Block is a true concrete block, interlocking, dry-stacked, very easy for the owner-builder to set up. New low-voc and foams made of renewable soybean field by-products are more sustainable.
A new ICF form block made of pumice-crete will be manufactured in Belen and I have recently designed 3 custom homes in this product.
A new sawdust and cement ICF block will be produced in las Vegas, NM
THICKWALL METHODS: Interchangeable with some timeless traditional methods...
RAMMED EARTH/PUMICE-CRETE PLANS: Thick Wall Designs of great mass and thermal stability. Forms are set up and filled with earth, requiring a great deal of labor with friends and mechanical tampers. Pumice-crete is a lightweight concrete and 1/2" pumice rock poured into the forms. Pise is a sprayed soil and concrete mix mechanically sprayed into one-sided forms. Rammed earth requires an engineer in permitting. Pumice-crete does not require alternative building engineering.
STRAWBALE & COB HOME PLANS: Thick Wall Strawbales are stacked up like huge bricks and reinforced with rebar pinning. Care must be taken to maintain the structure from water damage. You may be required to hire an engineer in permitting oversight. Check with your State building code for permit requirements.
Liecht Liem, or Straw-Clay is a German Tudor method of infill between timberframe or masonry structure. Straw-Clay is a lightweight cross between adobe and strawbale, 12" thick, with both insulation and mass
LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE PLANS: Detached garages, decks, garden walls, patios and ramadas, outdoor kivas, hot tubs, fences, sheds and farm barns.
CUGU, DESIGNER DOG HOUSE PLAN BOOK House your pet better in extreme climate conditions. Use these plans in animal humane projects or in teaching alternative building methods in small structures and hands-on learning.
Sorry, I am not yet developing bamboo and other lightweight tensile skin structures without additional corroboration with engineering back-up... Check back again later.
Strawbales have been shown to be the more ecologically sustainable and insulative methodology, and yet, we must say that strawbale is susceptible to vector racking deformation and breaching by insects, rodents, and moisture. Strawbale useage should be used as an appropriate eco-technology where super-insulation within hybridized structure is indicated, under additional structural wall infill, and with necessary maintenance or protection.
"The Earth itself is our passive solar hearth, as are all material mass planes or spaces. My friends, I dedicate to you my 21 years design-drafting experience in the hope of creating a far more sustainable future in health for the planet we share, our endeavors, and opportunity for wisdom & knowledge. Mankind cannot remain unaware of their belonging and responsibility in their behaviour impacting within our ecological environment. I am looking at exactly what we define as the real, the matter, the material, of estate, where we intend to live sustainably.
