Sustainable Home

The Creative Journey to a Smart, Sustainable Home

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Last month we highlighted Michael and Nancy Linsley’s indoor greenhouse in our blog. Now you can see their artful home – site, landscape and all – featured in Boulder County Home & Garden magazine.
2015 Home of the Year

2015 Home of the Year: Perfect Alchemy

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What’s more exciting than designing an expansive organic home for an artist and a cowboy? Winning 2015 Home of the Year! Thank you Colorado Homes & Lifestyles for honoring the entire design team with this extraordinary award.
Zoomerhouse Liftoff

Zoomerhouse Liftoff

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As architects we are usually in a relationship with our clients from the get go to make their dreams come true. Seldom do we design, build the dream, and then hope that the dream attracts the dreamer.
Winter Tomatoes: Growing Green Indoors

Winter Tomatoes: Growing Green Indoors

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In the beginning we knew that working on a new residence for ceramic artists Michael and Nancy Linsley was going to be a creative adventure. They emphasized that to truly support and express who they were, the home would incorporate growing way beyond the regular houseplant. To be clear, we’re talking about year-round indoor growing of veggies, herbs and lemons!
Boulder Foothills Home Wins AIA Colorado Architects Choice Award

Boulder Foothills Home Wins AIA Colorado Architects Choice Award

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Last week, AIA Colorado honored Phoenix Home in Boulder, CO with their 2014 Architects Choice Award. We’ve touched on the unique story about this home before: a client’s dream retreat rising from the ashes of the 2010 wildfires.
Favorite Things Volume 18

Our Favorite Things Volume 18

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Rebecca, our Interiors Intern and Librarian, is slightly obsessed with the Lumio…a brilliant lamp that cleverly disguises itself as a book!
Bluebell

Daylight: Come to Life!

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On many mornings I sit in a café where daylight surrounds the lives that come and go. Caffeine serves as a temporary agent of our awakening; we are warmed inside by a quiet moment, conversations, a new day. I watch as the light dances beautifully across faces, subtle expressions revealing an inner response that might have been missed sitting in a darker corner.

Time Lapse Mural Painting

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Rye Quartz wandered into our office last summer and made his offer: we buy the paint, and he paints our big, blank, boring cinder block wall facing the alley. One look at his website assured us this was an excellent opportunity to partner with a talented young artist. Rye drew inspiration for his mural painting from our architecture portfolio, then he got to work.

Our Favorite Things Volume 17

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Living Bridges, Literally: The tiny village of Mawsynram in Meghalaya puts Colorado’s frequent afternoon rainstorms to shame. Wearing “the wettest place on earth” badge with honor, the locals train the roots of rubber trees to grow into resilient natural bridges and ladders that last for centuries, where man-made wooden structures would deteriorate within a few years. Talk about 100% living architecture!
Zoomerhouse

Aging Gracefully for the Zoomy Boomer

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Last Spring I told you about Zoomerhouse, the “aging gracefully” home prototype in Boulder, Colorado that my wife Betzi and I were building. We are so proud to say our baby has been born. She’s a beauty.
The Curse of Houzz (and 5 ways to make it a blessing)

The Curse of Houzz (and 5 ways to make it a blessing)

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Need ideas for your kitchen remodel? No problem. On Houzz.com you have access to four million colorful photos of interiors and exteriors. Simply filter on 15 different attributes including number of islands, kitchen shape, and even backsplash color.

Moody Chicago: Photos from AIA Convention

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Last month during the AIA Convention in Chicago, the Windy City showed off another face. Thanks to global weirding, a particularly hard winter left ice far off the lakeshore, pushing cool winds and fog over the waterfront.
Sharing Culture

A Sharing Culture

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From Scott DuPree of Civil Society Transitions, I heard of the Zimbabwean idea of qoqelela: a community funded trust that allows individuals and families in the community to take turns purchasing things they wouldn’t have the means to otherwise – things that in turn help the community’s stability, such as livestock or looms.

Our Favorite Things Volume 16

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Cradle to Cradle certified, ECOR’s sustainable building panels and “kit of parts” panel components including Honeycor & Wavecor are lightweight, and easily assembled. They’re made from agricultural waste – cellulose fiber – with a closed loop water system in manufacturing leading to 99.5% reutilization.

Living with Art

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Hot off the presses: our Bluebell Home was just featured on the cover of the June / July issue of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles. For this home, our Principal of Building Technology, Sam Nishek, worked closely with David Barrett’s design direction to overcome the site’s restrictions, including building height & bulk plane, and tricky soils & drainage.