Student Designed, Energy Efficient Home Under Construction

Rendering of 2 student designed Habitat for Humanity homes, Middlebury, Vermont. Image from Middlebury College

We are proud to be a part of an exemplary, real world project that has taken off at Middlebury College. Ashley is the chair of the Building Committee for Habitat for Humanity in Middlebury, Vermont. At some point in the summer of 2017 he had the idea that college students in an architecture class could design houses for Habitat for Humanity using their skills, innovative design ideas, and class community to support them. Ashley’s friend and architect, John McLeod who practices architecture with McLeod Kredell Architects teaches a class that Ashley thought would be a perfect choice. This month, construction has begun on this student designed home. Much of the rest of this post draws on an article posted in the Newsroom on the Middlebury College website.

John McLeod, assistant professor of architecture and a partner in the firm McLeod Kredell Architects, has worked alongside groups of undergraduates since February 2018 on a project that will place an Addison County family in their own energy-efficient home by the end of this year. A second Habitat home, also designed by students, has been permitted for the same site and will be built in the coming years.

“I had high hopes and expectations for this partnership and this undertaking, and I have to say it has even exceeded them,” said McLeod. “It is so gratifying for everyone involved. It is a win-win-win-win for the students, for Habitat for Humanity, for the families [who will be moving into the homes], and for the community at large.

“We are bringing to bear all of the motivation and energy and talent of a number of Middlebury College students in service to thoughtful, appropriately progressive design of affordable housing in this county. To me, it’s part of what architecture is about and should be about. And for the students, this has been a real-world experience about one of the most fundamental aspects of life, which is shelter.”

Energy efficiency and care for the environment were major concerns for McLeod and his students. After all, as the architect remarked, Middlebury College and McLeod Kredell wouldn’t have it any other way. “We are designing and building these two houses to the highest performance standards so both the impact on the environment and the operating costs to the owners of the houses will be minimized.”

House A, at 1,100 square feet, will contain three bedrooms, while House B, at 900 square feet, will contain two. Both will have a full bathroom, a laundry space, and an electric heat-pump system, and each house will meet Efficiency Vermont’s highest energy standards.

McLeod has been pleased with the motivation of his students, “who are learning on the job and essentially doing the work of professional architects and designers on this project. They have risen to the occasion time and again”—whether it’s been meeting deadlines, doing the research, putting in the hours, or appearing before the town’s Development Review Board—“and met every challenge along the way.”

And unlike a formal classroom setting with quizzes, papers, and exams, here the motivation is a real building project. “It’s a real house for a real family with a real budget. Habitat for Humanity is a real client, and there are real neighbors and real permitting authorities. We always expect students to rise to the occasion in an academic setting, but for them to do it in a challenge that brings together academics with the needs of a real-world community . . . that’s going to have a lasting impact on them and their future success.”

In an interesting twist, McLeod’s business partner, Steve Kredell, is working with seventh graders from Burlington’s Edmunds Middle School to design and build an 8-foot-by-24-foot storage shed in sections that will be assembled later this spring on the site. The outbuilding is for bikes, lawn mowers, and garden tools, and it will sit between the two houses and be shared by both Habitat for Humanity families.

Take a look at this short video to listen to students and to witness their engagement and dedication to this real project that will house real families in need in energy efficient, beautiful, small homes. So proud of Middlebury College for taking the lead in so many ways.

Student plan for roof framing of one of the Habitat for Humanity homes. Image from Middlebury College video.

We're All in This Together: Bill McKibben Speaks About our Planet in Crisis

Last weekend was reunion weekend at Middlebury College.  We were hosting good friends so we decided to attend many of the programs even though it was not an official reunion year for either Ashley or me.  On Saturday morning, Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, spoke to a large crowd of Middlebury graduates of all ages.  (This post references comments made at that talk given Saturday, June 7th, and an article from the Newsroom link on the Middlebury College website that covers a talk given by Bill McKibben on April 4th, 2019, also at Middlebury College.)

Bill McKibben published the first book on climate change for a lay audience, The End of Nature, 30 years ago when he was 28 years old.  Since then he has published 11 other books and worked tirelessly to wake people up to the science of what continuing to burn fossil fuels is doing to planet earth.  Together with seven Middlebury College young alumni, he founded 350.org, a global grassroots movement to address climate change. He’s been on the frontline of environmental activism in the United States and globally.

One thing I learned at the talk, which was new to me, is that fossil fuel companies with their team of scientists have understood the reality of climate change since the 1980’s, and yet have had the money and power to perpetuate what McKibben calls “the most consequential lie in human history, given the stakes.” 

The other thing that I learned is that we have the technology to power the planet with sun and wind and battery storage.  That solar panels are built ever more affordably and with smarter and smarter technology.

“This is a timed test, and time is passing really, really quickly,” said McKibben. “It’s a test human beings may not pass. Climate change isn’t a negotiation of the usual sort, in which politicians or activists might work toward compromise. Physics don’t compromise.”

We can be inspired and moved to action ourselves by the youth all over the world who are becoming leaders in this movement and this fight because they see that adults have failed and because they dearly want a future. The youth movement, inspired by the actions of 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, span more than 100 countries and 1,500 cities, and organized students to gather in the streets and at their state capitols to call for action on March 15, 2019.

The president of Middlebury College, Laurie Patton, has likened McKibben to a “quiet prophet” at work on behalf of the planet. “Being a prophet means waking people in a single sentence,” said Patton. “Bill does that, again and again, and he wakes us up through love.”

Despite the long odds, despite the changes already under way and inevitable as the planet warms, McKibben isn’t giving up the fight.

“We are messy creatures, often selfish, prone to short-sightedness, susceptible to greed,” McKibben writes in the closing pages of his latest book, Falter. “In a Trumpian moment with racism and nationalism resurgent, you could argue that our disappearance would be no great loss. And yet, most of us, most of the time, are pretty wonderful, funny, and kind. Another name for human solidarity is love, and when I think about our world in its present form, that is what overwhelms me.”

We left this powerful talk thinking, “Now what?” What do we do? Bill praised Middlebury College numerous times in his talk for being an international leader in moving the campus toward net zero energy consumption. Also for divesting from any investments in fossil fuels.  The movements of protest and calling for divestment are making progress.  Bill McKibben told us that globally 3 trillion dollars have been divested from fossil fuel companies. 

For the future, for our children, for our grandchildren, we must speak up and take the actions that we can, living on the planet ever more lightly and gracefully. We are reading Falter and encourage you to as well.  We just joined 350.org. (It’s easy, just go to the website and sign up and you will be informed.) We can all continue to join the swell of people of all generations nationally and internationally who understand what we must do to save our one wild and precious planet.