Getting Inspired on Pender Island…
Last weekend, Sam and Elizabeth were invited to make a presentation on Living Roofs at the Pender Island Eco Homes Network’s Eco Building Symposium. It was a great weekend of sharing ideas and experiences, checking out absolutely inspiring custom built, eco-minded structures, and enjoying the local hospitality and landscape.
Some photos from the Eco Homes Tour are included below for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully you will also be inspired by the craftsmanship, creativity, ingenuity and collaboration that went into these works of art!
Inside a stray bail home with exposed large timber wood framing, clay walls and cork floors. This home has been owner-built over time with lots of donated labour from their friends, family and neighbours.
A living roof is planted on top of the straw bail home. The owners created the roof using EPDM as the waterproofing membrane, reclaimed carpet as the root barrier, and soil and plants from the property. Awesome!
Here is another living roof assembled with a similar EPDM-Reclaimed Carpet-Local Soil and Plants approach. This one is part of a larger custom green house project that will has the plants planted directly into soil installed directly onto the engineered green house floor.
A beautiful and functional joint detail.
More stunning timber framing and custom woodwork. Most the projects we toured used wood either reclaimed from elsewhere or harvested locally, often on the building site.
Here is the beautiful greenhouse with the plumbing in place for hydra-radiant floors.
A very unique shower surround built by hand with aluminum cans, clay and coloured glass bottles.
The quaint 100 sq. ft. seaside cabin designed and built by Sam and Elizabeth's host, designer Ken Rempel. http://kenrempel.ca
Sam works through some ideas on the Etch n Sketch.
Second Time Around.
All summer, we have been working on a not-so-average home addition project in Port Moody. Lucky for us – and the environment – the homeowners are very eco-minded and wanted to include as many green features as their budget allowed. In particular, they were drawn to recycled materials as they re-envisioned the entire home to make room for their growing family. Some of our favourite features are the rubber shake eco-roofing (from recycled tires), reclaimed cherry and fir wood flooring, denim insulation and a gabled living roof.
A close-up of the rubber shake eco roof. This is made from recycled tires.
Here are the refinished, reclaimed fir floors before the trim and other finishes goes up.
The rear addition will feature a gabled vegetated green roof. Here you can see the prep work completed so far. The LiveRoof modules will arrive pre-grown in a few months.
The project includes two ground floor additions (one to the side and one to the rear), and reconfiguration and refinishing of portions of existing house. Doug has been guiding this project along steadily and we are excited to be closing-in on completion. check back soon for more images!