Awesome. People are looking for the next wave of living environment. Walkable cities, diverse retail and localized business interests, reduction of their energy usage - all part of the new urban schema. But I'm not going to settle for just hyper dense, garden communities. Single family, single building - that style is going to be very popular for sure but the Gia Ship takes it beyond.
Guy I was working with, a gentleman and programmer has a picture perfect business lunch with me: Excellent Sushi, presented beautifully and I decide to broach the subject of 'the idea' and my late night surfing and discovery of New Urbanism. To my surprise and delight, he responds quickly and is a fellow enthusiast.
He turns me on to Jane Jacobs and a short Amazon query later and a perusal of the free pages they provide. I've picked up three of her books, a quick $30 but hey... lunch cost that too, no big deal.
The nature of Economies. Excellent read, bout halfway through it. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and Cities and the Wealth of Nations are next on the list, though my government professor is encouraging me to chew on a Texas government textbook instead. It's good reading too - and surprisingly relevant to the issue at hand. And this issue is decidedly a local government issue. After all, I need to know how to leverage the government policies and people if I want to do this, and New Urbanists are already helping make the case. Given that these posts are happening at the same time as My idea comes bubbling up... makes me wonder if I'm not being influenced by subtle external hints.
New Urban News - we have a for pay newspaper and someone making money off these thoughts - promising indeed. I just might blow the $80 for a subscription but it's high enough to make me hesitate... after all, my sidelines from my job include pursuing an engineering degree and buying a restaurant at the moment. This remains a 5-8 year planning effort. All in all - I'm reviewing the website and we'll see if I'll splurge for the full shabang.
Another nice resource - quantification of audiences. So, who am I looking to attract to the Gai Ship. Trendsetters for sure.
Quotes below are extractions of the entire article.
These consumers are willing to make choices that generate environmental benefits, but not if it means sacrifice.They will recycle when it’s convenient. They will embrace energy-saving housing, but it “cannot look weird."
I'm fully in the Opportunists niche.
These pragmatic, optimistic, entrepreneurial people welcome advances in technology. They love gadget-green buildings. They count on economic self-interest rather than regulation to lead society toward improved buildings and communities
Though I also find some harmonization with the Survivalists. I love to camp outdoors, and backpacking in the mountains is my ultimate recharge. I love knowing that I really *can* survive with little to no modern convenience.
They will adapt their lifestyles for the “Long Emergency,” the bleak period when oil production declines. The survivalists will spur more discussion of how we’re going to adapt to global warming. Survivalists will circle the wagons for family and community. They will prepare for off-the-grid living. At their worst, they are paranoid about security. They may constitute the majority someday. So new urbanists thinking about how to market sustainable development should think about security.
Ah, the loonies in the playground. Love them or hate them, they are a valid audience and may perhaps be our first customers. For instance off the grid power generation - well, at least I'm making the grid more local, tapped into the major grid of course, but since I'm looking at power generation coming from hundreds or thousands of micro generation systems - everything from solar panel, wind turbines, heat re-capture and geothermal; spread all over the Gai Ship complex, the blackouts are a thing of the past.
Back to the Trendsetters - our primary audience. The primary thing we have to be very very careful of is "Not Looking Weird"(TM) The Gia Ship will be a "weird" building by modern tastes!!! Currently I'm picturing a long, skinny building or set of 3-4 long skinny buildings - winding around 500 acres. Yes - Big buildings! Tall, 10-15 story Spires rise from the buildings capped by wind turbines and filled with condos, apartments, high end retail and dining establishments. These spires will look down upon hundreds of acres of living roof that doubles as park space, farm acreage, rainwater capture and perhaps even some animal husbandry (cattle, horses, pigs and or chickens); but roof usage is a decision I'll broach another time. Suffice it to say - we're building an artificial hill, complete with high plateaus, grottoes and peaks for people to live in, on and under.
The sides of our hill/building will be sloped outward. Yes, it's easier and more traditional to make it a flat 90 degree face - and it's likely that the slope will vary all over the place up to and even past the usual 90 degree vertical line - but outward sloping allows for multiple levels to have living patios. Picture this, you're in your living room, and you look out the large windows onto your patio. On the outer edge of the patio is a low, thick wall that acts as your railing. Flowers, shrubs and even small trees grow profusely in the earth filled and automatically irrigated space. For some patios, particularly ones for the upper end of the residential and retail mix, I even picture them being floored with grasses - that's right, an earthen patio... and you're on the 3rd floor. Walking out to the wall you smell the flowers and notice that the breeze that moves around you is cool and smells good. Your neighbor's Mountain Laurel is blooming and the scent overrides your own marigolds until you're right up on them. Looking out over your plantings, the wall is thick enough to provide your downstairs neighbor privacy unless you lean way over but then you'd probably crush your plantings.
The roof of your patio is a standard looking patio roof from below - but from above you would see that it's fully paneled with solar panels. Those solar panels are yours and the energy they produce offsets whatever usage you have - reducing your overall electric bill.
The patio plantings are a way to leverage their shade and cooling, do rainwater capture and provide a more pleasant living arrangement. Remember - this is supposed to be a replacement for the standard 'American Dream Home' that normally includes some sort of out-door space. You could even grow food plants in your patio garden
Building a living roof and something that can support trees and other plant matter all up it's side requires a good deal more strength than your typical wood frame. Given that another primary goal is to leverage the heating and cooling benefits of thermal mass, much of the construction will be stone and concrete based materials. I don't anticipate using a lot of woods or other more standard, and construction materials except as interior partitions. This again complicates our "Weird" feel since many people identify strongly with the traditional building styles as "Correct" and changing that perception may be very difficult. Brick and stone facades over concrete are the answer I think. People marvel when they enter a building that looks like it could be standing for their great great great grandchildren to see. That's the feeling - and reality I want to evoke.
So the outside - it's pretty weird! I mean... an artificial hill!?!
However, keeping it from being too weird - interior spaces will be much more standard fare. Interior facing doors and windows will have traditional facades. No rounded corners or Jetsons looking hallways here. Reactions to such post-modern styles is always a mixed bag. People can and will appreciate quality stone and brick work. In their homes, walls will be made of traditional materials like sheet-rock. Floors will be stained concrete, tile, carpet or bamboo based wood flooring (grown on site of course).
Inside - not so bad! Yay, we're Trendsetters!
One thing that is lurking in the back of my head and is fodder for another post - this place is going to be expensive to build. Ah well - we'll address the myriad income sources for a developer and manager. We did say this was to be luxury living... it's not going to be cheap, but it is going to be very, very nice - where living green is convenient.
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