Small House Style

Remodeling an Airstream is one of the most sustainable things one can do.

I’m an architect. I know, it’s ironic, but I don’t prefer designing a brand new home.

Like you (I hope!) it’s our job to take care of the earth by our own behavior.

The most unsustainable thing one can do to the earth is to design and build a new home where there wasn’t one before. Worse still, is tearing down an old home and building a new one in its place.

A new home takes an enormous amount of energy and natural resources build.

Using the empty shell – the floor, walls and roof – in an existing building requires significantly less energy than new construction. By eliminating the need for building a foundation, erecting walls, installing windows, and placing on a new roof thousands of dollars of resources that would have been required to build these elements can be transferred, or saved all together.

The end result is a win-win. Sustainable and more cost effective.

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There are many levels of accessibility in home design, with variations even within the current federal laws that mandate accessibility for public buildings and multi-family housing. Individual homeowners are not usually required by law to make their new small ADU or stand-alone single-family house comply with any accessibility guidelines so what standards you set for your use are your choice.

The traditional carriage house above a garage is difficult to make accessible unless an elevator or a lift is included, but it could be made safer with the stair inside out of the snow and ice.

This is a guest post in a series by Mike Kephart of Kephart Living, LLC, a design and consulting firm dedicated to the support and resurgence of the Sidekick Home or Accessory Dwelling Unit with offices in Denver, CO. View the first post in the series, “Accessible Small Houses,” here.

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