After I don't know how many months of inactivity, I am finally finding a moment to reconnect and share my thoughts. The past few months can qualify as the most demanding and stressful times in both my professional and private life by far. For over 10 years I have been designing, drafting, redesigning, redrafting what would be my dream house, including all the ideal spaces and gadgets I have ever through of, to showcase all strategies and technologies for a more sustainable living, and as my life and living patterns suffered changes, going from 1 kid to two and later to three, and finally adding a dog to our already large family, the house also suffered changes in the drafting table. When getting close to the 10 years of design I decided it was time to venture myself into the building process, so taking into account all the additional effort it required from me and my family financially and time wise, I still decided to jump in the pool, and dragged everyone in with me.
As an architect I was very much aware of the construction process and its demands, however my children and husband were not, and even through my office staff is also familiar with the construction process, none of us could actually grasp all the strength this would drag from me and all the sacrifices to be made. My kids getting used to waking up
at 6:00am to see me rush through the door to the construction site, my husband complaining of the long nights at work to make up for time spent at the construction site during the day, and my office pretty much begging for more of my time to solve other pressing matters in projects much more important that my dream house.
Every day I took to the construction site to see how things were blossoming, as to my eyes they did blossom from a very interesting sometimes risky idea into actual objects and spaces I could see and touch. I saw how the site was prepared and the top soil reserved for future planting, how the reused oil pipping was coming up as structural elements, how the wood used for formwork for the concrete pieces was being carefully selected and stored for future reuse on site as doors and furniture, and how the pipping was being organized to allow for water classification and reuse of gray water within the same bathrooms. All the time I continued to see my ideal house develop in front of me, and despite the stress, bringing a sense of fulfillment. Of course this happened only to me, its designer and creator, however all those around had different perspectives, my children complaining about the materials chosen, my husband about the size of certain spaces, but I kept on urging them to wait until the building was complete in order for them to pass judgement.
Eleven months later, I have already spent a couple of weeks living in my dream house, and can confirm everything is great about it. My kids and husband at the end have understood all the effort put into it, and have come to love all the different spaces, materials and textures. Visitors still find the house "different", "odd" and in some cases have even thrown harsher remarks, but I know it is difficult to understand, it is difficult for people who have not experienced spaces like these to grasp its strength and purpose.
The house sits on a large site, filled with 30 year old trees, and it is a curved house adjusting to the central tree, placing surrounding over building. The house is a built model of all my design principles, it includes reused pieces such as oil pipping for structure, a truck chassis for staircase, shredded tires for wall and floor covering in bathroom areas, has the concrete slab as only and final floor finish, recycles all of its lavatory and shower water for reuse in the toilet, and in a 3 month period will be all PV powered and will heat the water from solar collectors.
So lets get to the point, taking a shower. In my previous homes, every time me or my kids took a shower, we had to leave the shower running for a few minutes before warm water came through, thinking of all the water going to waste down the drain, and most times I was always rushing everyone to take fast showers in order to minimize water waste.
I can summarize the house and the impact it is already having on all of us, by saying we now think about the ways in which we are reducing our footprint and impact as we are taking a shower. My children are learning about the impact each person has on its surroundings though the use of resources and they are proud to tell their classmates and friends about how their home is efficient, about it's recycled and salvaged materials, how it has become now also THEIR dream house.
So in the end we all think this has been time well spent.
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