Hammer Time: How Students, Faculty, Local Businesses and Holyoke’s Community Development Corporation Are Teaming Up to Fight the Housing Crisis

Hammer Time: How Students, Faculty, Local Businesses and Holyoke’s Community Development Corporation Are Teaming Up to Fight the Housing Crisis

They call it “Paper House”: a modular, 500-square-foot, high-performance, net zero, low carbon house designed and built by the students in UMass DesignBuild, a joint effort between the Building and Construction Technology Program and Department of Architecture at UMass Amherst and the Five College Architectural Studies program. DesignBuild is in its second year, and it seeks to address major problems, both in the educational world, and in the broader world at large. “A builder might go through their whole education and never see the work involved in designing a house,” says Carl Fiocchi, a lecturer and professional master’s program coordinator in the Building and Construction Technology Program. “The reverse is true for architects, too, who might never get any experience actually building their designs.” The DesignBuild class seeks to bridge this gap between the builders and designers with a two-semester sequence. In the spring semester, students are given a set of design parameters—the house’s overall footprint, budget, materials, etc.—and with those in place, design the...
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UMass Design-Build “HyggeHaus” at the Green River Festival

UMass Design-Build “HyggeHaus” at the Green River Festival

Residents of western Massachusetts have long marked the start of summer by the opening of the Green River Festival. Now in its 35th year, the three-day music festival held in Greenfield, Massachusetts draws a large crowd hungry for food, fun and dancing. This year, thanks to students and professors in UMass Amherst’s Building and Construction Technology Program, as well as the collaborative efforts of the UMass Department of Architecture, the Five College Architectural Studies program, and East Branch Studio, festival-goers were able to rock out at the HyggeHaus, a modular, 350 square foot, high-performance, net zero, low carbon accessory dwelling unit that served both as an auxiliary stage and as a model of sustainable living addressing both equity and the national housing shortage. Hygge, pronounced “hyoo-guh,” is a Norwegian term that signifies “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” This DesignBuild project was started begun by a group of UMass students and instructors in 2020, but the build was postponed due...
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Wesley Stanhope & Ken Neuhauser Present on Building Commissioning

Wesley Stanhope & Ken Neuhauser Present on Building Commissioning

Synopsis Buildings are comprised of potentially competing systems that are expected to work in harmony with each other. Commissioning is a living and adaptive process that can be implemented at any point throughout the lifespan of a building, ensuring that the building systems are reviewed and tested for optimum performance. Wes & Ken shared lessons learned from projects to explain why the most successful building Commissioning starts before design has begun.   https://youtu.be/zbeDksdTxU8   Links Building Evolution Corporation ...
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Tedd Benson speaks about a better way to build in the 21st Century

Tedd Benson speaks about a better way to build in the 21st Century

Tedd, founder of Bensonwood (1973) and Unity Homes (2012), has devoted his life to developing a better way to build. A key figure in the revival of timber framing in America, he was one of the founders of the Timber Framers Guild of North America (1984) and authored four books on the subject. Through the decades, Bensonwood established itself as a creative leader in timber frame design, engineering, craftsmanship, and CAD- CAM technology. This work has taken the company to nearly every state in the U.S. (Oklahoma is a holdout), as well as Canada, England and Japan. After having spent many years with the Bensonwood team developing processes, systems, logistics, and technology, Tedd went on to found Unity Homes, now a sister company, with the objective to make high performance homes affordable and normal. Today, Bensonwood continues to lead the industry, pioneering the use of Mass Timber and CLT’s in buildings large and small, and collaborating on innovative projects to...
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Giancarlo Tosi speaks about a revolutionary technology that is changing the way we cool our buildings.

Giancarlo Tosi speaks about a revolutionary technology that is changing the way we cool our buildings.

Giancarlo Tosi the Regional Manager of DADANCO offers a presentation on the use of radiant heating and cooling with active chilled beams. Over the past 150, periodically, we have experienced significant mechanical system changes and introductions into our buildings. These systems delivered, what has become our rigorous expectation, for both occupant comfort and convenience. Central Heating, Indoor Plumbing, Electric Light, Ventilation, and of course Space Cooling. All have enormously improved our indoor experiences, the place where we spend 90% of our time. It has, of course, come at a cost. An acceptable financial one, but also one that was first not understood, but now of course is ---the negative impact on our climate. Mr. Tosi’s presentation is about a revolutionary technology that is changing the way in which we cool our buildings while at the same time spectacularly reducing the energy usage of what is one of our principle building loads ---Space Cooling. Presentation Slides https://youtu.be/UlgZ-5fUQSA Links DADANCO...
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