A Green Village for Teachers

Windigo has designed a Green Housing Village for the faculty members of a private school in Massachusetts with construction scheduled to start in the very near future! The site currently consists of a maintenance yard and several old tennis courts in dire need of replacing. As a growing institution, the school also needed new housing for both incoming and long-term teachers. The objective of the new housing project was to provide single family homes, duplexes, and eight new tennis courts, while retaining the two existing historic buildings on the south of the site and working within the environmental limitations of the surrounding area. The design concept was to create a sustainable community within the school's vernacular that connected the upper and lower sections of the campus.

Each unit was designed to be inherently energy efficient through modular construction, solar orientation, and a thermally holistic building shell. The housing community will also utilize active energy efficient building systems to significantly reduce energy costs and its carbon footprint. The following list provides a glimpse into some of the sustainable features of these homes and the community itself.

Walk-ability:

• The dwellings are within walking distance of nearly every facility needed by faculty members living on campus. The houses are situated directly adjacent to the swimming pool and tennis courts. Other sports facilities, faculty offices, the dining hall, academic buildings, hiking trails, and even a ski-lift are all within reasonable walking distance from the housing community.

Modular construction:

•  Significantly reduces typical construction waste by 50-70% 
•  Uses sustainable and renewable material resources
• Ensures a higher quality of construction and tighter envelope – keeping the desired temperature inside the house and minimizing energy loss

Solar orientation:

•   Passive heating from the sun – the buildings will mainly be occupied during the colder fall, winter, and spring months. The large windows on the southern walls and the low angle of the sun can act to heat the main living spaces during these chillier months.
•  The natural sunlight will also light the living spaces during the day, thereby reducing the need for artificial lighting

LED lighting:

• LED lighting is used throughout the home- both inside and out. LED fixtures cut down tremendously on energy bills and last significantly longer. 

Geothermal wells:

•  A geothermal well system uses the earth as a heat source in the winter, or a heat sink in the summer. As water passes through the system, the housing units will be sufficiently heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, while minimizing energy costs. The payback calculation have shown that geothermal is more cost effective for the school than other standard methods of heating and cooling.

Solar panels:

• Because the dwellings are all oriented to the south, the southern roofing provides enough surface area to harvest plenty of solar energy. These solar panels not only provide energy for the lighting systems, they also support the electrically run geothermal heating and cooling system and provide an energy source for future electric cars.

Windigo Presents: Furniture Design

Windigo Architecture has the unique opportunity to go beyond the traditional scope of architecture and into the exciting world of furniture design! We are pleased to be working on the design of two custom furniture pieces for Eaglebrook School: An Interactive Coat Hook Wall and hybrid Bench-Cubbies. These two unique pieces will eventually be used and repeated throughout the campus, giving students and teachers alike a much needed place to store their belongings (besides the floor, of course).

The concept for the Coat Hook Wall originated from the need for storage that students would actually want to use, but would neither detract from the simplicity of the hallway nor visually compete with the collections of student art work that adorn the walls. At first glance, the Interactive Coat Hook Wall appears like a piece of modern artwork itself. Simple, white, and unassuming, it allows the hallways to remain open and blends into its surroundings. That is, until the students bring the wall to life as they enter the building for their classes, meetings, and presentations.

Students can activate the wall by pushing on one end of a hook to expose the end used for hanging their belongings. Each hook can swing 180 degrees, which, when several are manipulated, can create innumerable variations of wall textures and shadow patterns that change throughout the day as students move through the space and utilize each hook.

The wall continues to be an interactive and ever changing piece of wall art as students activate the hooks and hang a variety of coats, hats, and scarves throughout the day. The Coat Hook Wall features hooks at different heights to accommodate the varying heights of its middle school age users. When not in use, the hooks can return to their nooks, once again creating a seamless view down the corridor and giving way to student work. Thus, the wall becomes a dynamic, yet simple piece of art work that fluctuates with the students, the weather, and the time of day.

Besides coats and associated winter-wear, backpacks and bags also have the tendency to be strewn throughout the campus. Therefore, accompanying the Coat Hook Wall, are the hybrid Bench-Cubbies. These custom designed benches feature integrated cubby spaces for students’ book bags. Each bench is stained and painted to compliment the building in which is resides, thus creating uniformity throughout the campus, yet assimilating to each unique building type. Varying colors and stains in the benches also make it easier for students to identify where and in which cubby they've placed their things. These two furniture designs illustrate just how form and function can work in conjunction to create beautiful and usable spaces. Stay tuned for images of the completed furniture pieces!