Aspen's Innovative Ways to Address Climate Change | Aspen Sojourner

Follow the link below to the Aspen Sojourner article on innovations in fighting climate change.

https://www.aspensojo.com/articles/2019/5/30/aspen-innovative-ways-to-address-climate-change

Aspen Center for Environmental Studies | Efficient, Affordable Teacher Housing

Green Line Architects is working with ACES, Evolve Structural Design, MM Eight Construction, and CORE on the design and construction of an Efficient, Affordable Teacher Housing project in Carbondale. 

Here is the link to the recent Sopris Sun newspaper article about the project, and the major benefactor - Kim Stacey, who donated the lot to ACES!

Coming up:

In early March, Green Line Architects and CLEER will be hosting community events around the future-thinking design of this house.  These will be on-site seminars that will highlight the various energy-efficient and material-efficient strategies that are being implemented on this project.
CLEER will provide AIA CEUs for local architects.

Below is a description of each of our organizations, and a project narrative highlighting the ACES Teacher Housing Project. 

Owner: Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) is an environmental science education organization in our valley that provides housing for its educators. 

Read more at:

https://www.aspennature.org/about/letter-from-the-CEO

Architect: Green Line Architects is a full service sustainable architecture firm that specializes in energy efficient envelopes, efficient mechanical systems, renewable energy systems, passive and active design, and non-profit / community projects.

Engineer: Evolve Structural Design strives to provide designs that cultivate sustainable material use and forward-thinking construction practices. Evolve also takes pride in every opportunity to support and collaborate with our local non-profit community.

General Contractor: MM Eight Construction is an independent general contracting firm that not only delivers impeccable results but prioritizes its clients. MM Eight are very engaged in community projects as an effort to better our community. 

Land Donor: Kim Stacey. Long-time resident and community garden/chicken co-op organizer.

Energy Organization: Clean Energy Economy for the Region (CLEER) works to accelerate the transition to clean energy economy, increase energy independence, and reduce our contribution to climate change. 

Energy Organization: The project is a recipient of Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) grants for the envelope and design assistance for the design team, and rebates for the heating system and solar electric system. 

Town of Carbondale: Our local building official, John Plano, collaborated with the team on the alternative compliance submittal for the shallow frost protected foundation design. We submitted our calculations from the NAHB guide to meet the requirements of the 2015 IRC. 

Project Narrative:

The ACES Teacher Housing project is a community project that has brought together a very skilled team in an integrative design process to produce an affordably-built, efficient home for environmental science educators in the Roaring Fork Valley. The land was donated for the project, and comes with the caveat that the existing chicken coop, community egg co-op and organic garden be maintained by the residents of the house. 

This project incorporates an above code efficient envelope (wall assembly, insulation and windows), optimized advanced framing (24” o.c. studs stacked floor to floor and pre-engineered trusses) shallow frost protected foundation design, an all-electric heat pump mechanical system, heat recovery ventilators, future electric car charging and on site solar electric generation. 

The home is centrally located in Carbondale, CO (a very bike friendly community) with easy access to public transportation, with three bedrooms, and an attached ADU for the flexibility of growing families. Construction is under way.

In-kind donations from all of the project partners have been made to make this affordable housing project work in an area where the cost of living often does not match wages, particularly for educators.

Below are some examples of some of the "envelope" or "shell" detailing for the house: