For former Vice President Al Gore, it was an inconvenient truth.
His sprawling, 20-room suburban Nashville home consumed 20 times the national average of kilowatt hours, a Tennessee public policy group charged in 2007.
Omaha architects James Leach and Kris Nelson believe Gore’s case offers an object lesson. When it comes to contemporary architectural design, size does matter.
Leach and Nelson, architects with the firm Leo A. Daly, are advocating a style of architectural design — called “compact living” — that is a close cousin to eco-art.
In short, they believe the time has come for people to live in smaller, more energy efficient homes that are constructed from eco-friendly materials.
“People should buy only as much home as they need, not as much as they can afford,” Nelson said.
Leach and Nelson, who are in their 30s and married, say statistics back up their claims about the benefits of smaller homes.
A typical well-insulated 3,000-square-foot home, for instance, will still cost nearly $150 a month more to heat and cool than a poorly insulated house half the size.
Gore’s solution of putting solar panels on his mansion isn’t the answer either, Leach said.
“The problem with Gore’s solar panel idea is that his big house is still going to use a lot more energy than a smaller house,” Leach said.
To make smaller living more attractive, Leach and Nelson have launched an independent project called Think Tank Design Studio. Through the studio, they’ve designed homes that are compact, environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing.
One of those homes, designed for a couple in Detroit, featured large windows positioned to bring warming sunlight in during the winter. A decorative trellis system over the windows partially blocked the sun in summer.
Leach and Nelson say that the materials used in an eco-friendly home are also important. A homebuyer, for instance, may have his heart set on a certain kind of Chinese marble.
“It would be more environmentally friendly to find a similar kind of marble in Canada,” Nelson said. “That way, the marble is just shipped down a river instead of across the Pacific Ocean.”
Compact architecture has yet to become a national craze, Leach and Nelson concede. But after decades of architects designing McMansions, some people are taking the idea more seriously.
“If we mentioned this idea a few years ago, people would have laughed,” Nelson said. “After the subprime mortgage meltdown, they’re not laughing anymore.”
Contact the writer:
444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
