eaDesign For Life™ Technologies and Features
It’s about creating a happy and healthy home environment, an oasis, where our clients can thrive.
An Everyday Oasis
Environment Associates designs aesthetically pleasing safe havens for retreat and recovery from environmental stresses and toxins. (Click here to learn more about our healthful homes.) Our homes are designed to have clean indoor air, very low energy demand, and be places where you can live in relative comfort without the need for power of any kind (very useful in the aftermath of hurricanes or other events). Because our homes are so energy efficient, they require significantly smaller and, thus, far less costly renewable energy systems (such as solar PV). Some homes can even be mini power plants with our Beyond Net Zero design. Some clients even collect and store adequate rainwater for all their personal and gardening needs.
Technologies:
- Design for the site’s microclimate, place, and ecology
- Natural finishes or no-VOC finishes
- Radiant heat barriers and heat-reflecting exterior materials and colors
- Advanced insulation methods and materials
- Harvesting naturally reoccurring renewable energy and onsite water and wind resources
- Use of interior thermal storage walls to increase mean radiant temperature comfort and provide natural heating and cooling storage capacity
- Permaculture-based land planning and stewardship
- Low maintenance materials and detailing to provide long-term durability and ease of replacement
- Use of appropriate, cost-effective alternative construction technologies
- Appropriate use of onsite, local, and regional construction materials
- Satisfying aesthetics and functional efficiency as part of the basic design
- Fully day‐lighted interiors
- Tightly air‐sealed building envelope
- Advanced natural ventilation design techniques
- Design for naturally cooled and heated exterior spaces to extend outdoor living
- Very high-energy performance design and detailing
- Cradle-to-Cradle concepts to reduce waste and to eliminate toxic waste
- Smaller building and lower carbon footprints are strongly encouraged
- Beyond Net Zero Energy‐capable architecture encourages income-producing, renewable-energy-powered homes
Click here to learn how to get started.