The Journal
Innovation & Technology
Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Breathing Clean Indoor Air
Breathing Clean Indoor Air
By weight, you breathe more than you eat and drink

Optimum interior air quality has become an increasingly prominent concern in our work. Passive house interior air quality is pristine because highly filtered fresh air is constantly being exchanged with the interior air. The passive house standard requires filtration systems that achieve a MERV (Min...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Carbon  Neutral Architecture
Carbon Neutral Architecture
The 2030 Challenge: All new buildings, developments, and major renovations carbon-neutral by 2030

The built environment is responsible for three fourths of annual global greenhouse gas emissions: buildings alone account for 39 percent.  Eliminating these emissions is the key to addressing climate change and meeting Paris Climate Agreement targets. The American Institute of...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Low Voltage Electrical Systems
Low Voltage Electrical Systems
A brilliant alternative

This article is somewhat technically oriented, but it is also about the larger picture. Our design focus favors taking forward-looking, intelligent advantage of emerging but proven technologies. What we are doing 'under the hood' enhances our work with improved economies and performance - weaving ...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Why We Build Buildings Twice
Why We Build Buildings Twice
See it all - before it's built

Before our projects are actually constructed on a site, they are built first in our studios, in a comprehensive computer model. Working closely with specialized experts in each of the disciplines involved, we model every system in the project... not just the architecture, but the lighting, plumbin...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Cakes Left Out in the Rain
Cakes Left Out in the Rain
"... If it leaks, it's art."

That natural forces will act on, and ultimately destroy, any contribution we make to our built environment persists as one of the few things we can be sure of about the fate of any building. For architects, this presents a challenge somewhat analogous to that of medical professionals who, desti...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Why We Build Airtight Architecture
Why We Build Airtight Architecture
Air sealing is the 'secret sauce'

Passive House architecture: Healthy, comfortable places to live and work that use a fraction of the energy of mainstream construction. Many people presume this must be all about insulating really well, and while that is important, the amazing performance of a Passive House project actually begins wi...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Building Legacy Architecture
Building Legacy Architecture
Site matters more than stuff

Building with durable, inorganic materials such as SIREWALL means spending more initially to create buildings that will not burn, rot, or otherwise decompose. What are the implications of designing buildings that will stand for generations rather than years?A brook trout swims freely... within the b...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - NOT Passive Solar
NOT Passive Solar
'Passive house' reliably performs - it's pure physics

One of the most common misunderstandings we see about our high performance architecture is that we are preoccupied with passive solar design - which is actually something we don't have any particular interest in.  It's easy to see why this confusion happens: Passive House (or Passivh...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Shading Data - No Guesses
Shading Data - No Guesses
Knowing exactly what sunlight will do

One of the many aspects of site specific architectural design now standard practice in our pre-design research process is to acquire a forensic understanding of the shading conditions that will alter how our architecture will be exposed to the sun over the course of each year.Designing high perfor...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Triple Glazed Window Benefits
Triple Glazed Window Benefits
Why invest in better windows?

Triple glazed windows are the new stars of window energy efficiency... but why should you care?  Comfort. Comfort is the reason you will want to use triple glazed windows. Before we get too far on why you should be excited about energy efficiency and comfort, here is a brief history of US windo...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - HERS Index:  The Home Energy Rating System
HERS Index: The Home Energy Rating System
It's like having a car dealer window sticker for your home

 The Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Index is the industry standard by which a home's energy efficiency is measured.   HERS scores are designed for new homes (or homes after a complete renovation). When builders need to meet efficiency standards, they use the HERS Index, which has...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - The Language of Mechanical Comfort Systems
The Language of Mechanical Comfort Systems
Just in case you were wondering

“Environmental control systems tend to be treated rather like the Cinderella of architecture; given only the plainest clothes to wear, they are relegated to a back room to do the drudgery that maintains the elegant lifestyle of the other sisters: light, form, structure, and so forth." ~ Lisa Hesch...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Sam On Meet The Elite Podcast
Sam On Meet The Elite Podcast
Five minute pitch for Passivhaus

A quick summary of what we've been up to with high performance 'passivhaus' building design.  Why do all of our clients request this option? Interview with Sam Rodell, AIA...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - The Fulcrum of the Power Grid
The Fulcrum of the Power Grid
Utility companies face growing challenges

The railroad system that spans our continent represents one of the most ambitious historical achievements of our nation. Our infrastructure of power utilities gradually eclipsed that incredible achievement in both scale and significance. We are the beneficiaries of over a century of ongoing investme...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Designing for Natural Light
Designing for Natural Light
Forensically accurate sun studies

One of the first things we do with a new project is build a detailed and accurate three dimensional computer model of the land and its physical features from a survey. The survey work is usually completed using both a laser theodolite and satellite GPS data. The topographic model created from this d...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Steer Clear of Toxic Tile
Steer Clear of Toxic Tile
Offshore sources are highly suspect

Most ceramic wall or floor tile is now manufactured out of the United States, and the use of highly toxic heavy metals in the glazes is common. Most of the tiles you will see, especially in retail outlets, were manufactured in China, or in Cambodia or Vietnam by Chinese companies. The environmenta...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - The Intelligent Choice
The Intelligent Choice
The win-win option you need to know you have

Europeans have lived with high energy costs for a long time, and have a strong pragmatic awareness of the costs associated with heating and cooling buildings. So it may come as no surprise that the leading standard in energy savings comes to us from Germany: The Passive House standard. It's not a...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - The First Step to Net Zero Energy
The First Step to Net Zero Energy
Begin by reducing the need

A 'net-zero energy' building generates more energy than it needs. The most important item in Net-Zero design is reducing the demand for energy. This is the main principle behind the Passive House concept, so it should be a natural progression for architects designing to the passive house standard to...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - What Plants Can Teach Us About Storing Energy
What Plants Can Teach Us About Storing Energy
Do it like rhubarb does it

Biomimicry: What plants can teach us about storing energy... Good bye, fossil fuel dependency! The main challenge with sun and wind energy is storage. Because the sun isn't always shining, and the wind isn't always blowing, we need to be able to bank away renewable energy when it's available for ...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Design for Future Abundance
Design for Future Abundance
Talking about sustainability as 'doing without' is counterproductive

The classical English pattern of using the village commons (that communally owned and used land which was available for pasturing private livestock) did not involve a conflict between public and private welfare as long as there was enough land. However, as herds increased, the over-grazed land becam...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Optimizing Walls for Energy Performance
Optimizing Walls for Energy Performance
Conventional assumptions turned upside down

We assign a very high priority to comfort in buildings - specifically, thermal comfort. One of the basic distinctions between being inside' and 'outside' is that when we are inside, we expect to be comfortable. We essentially live in two climates - interior and exterior - and the construction assemb...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Designing with Sheets of Light
Designing with Sheets of Light
Continually innovating LED technologies

One of the most exciting and interesting aspects of architecture is lighting design, and emerging technologies are creating an ever expanding horizon of design possibilities. This is a flexible 'light sheet' that provides high quality lighting while eliminating many of the constraints and chal...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Phase Change Materials
Phase Change Materials
Passive energy storage sinks can lower heating and cooling demand

Putting Nature's Magic to Work For Us: Phase Change Materials We see it all around us, all the time; temperature changes make stuff freeze, melt, or vaporize. These 'phase change' transformations, in which molecules change from one state of matter to another, are so common we take them for grante...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Details and Intention
Details and Intention
If our work is well designed, benefits will far outweigh costs

When we experience good design - whether it is the design of a product, a service, or an environment - seemingly small, nuanced details we may well not even be conscious of will often exert a powerful influence on our perceptions. Even without knowing why, we are drawn toward the intentions of our b...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Art and Science of Architecture
Art and Science of Architecture
Any architectural firm worthy of the title must excel both artistically and technologically

In Western culture, science and art are often thought of as existing in separate worlds. Our higher educational institutions support this notion, for example - coursework is generally offered in the arts, or in the sciences. Yet we need look no further than the rise of Apple to recognize this is a...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Three Dimensional Point Clouds
Three Dimensional Point Clouds
Digitizing the material world

Technical innovation continues to rapidly and profoundly impact the practice of architecture. Here is one example: We can now perform a three dimensional laser scan of any built environment, rapidly collecting the locations of millions of points in space, creating a digital file housing a massive bu...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Zero Net Energy Owners Speak Out
Zero Net Energy Owners Speak Out
Monthly energy savings exceed the increase in the monthly mortgage payment

A Zero Net Energy Home produces as much energy as it consumes, resulting in zero net energy bills and zero net carbon emissions. But the story does not end there. Zero Energy Homes have many other advantages over standard homes and so-called 'green' homes. They are very quiet, they provide f...

Coeur d'Alene Architect's Journal - Designing with Thermal Analysis Tools
Designing with Thermal Analysis Tools
0% guesswork - 100% Physics

Our buildings are designed to isolate the interior climate from the exterior climate, which means we need to consider every way energy moves between the interior and exterior, including the roofs, walls, floors, doors, windows... literally every square inch of the places where heated or cooled spa...