By Seth Masia

Kansas Longhouse measures 24 feet north-to-south and 140 feet east-to-west. Moveable walls allow breeze to flow full length and width in summer. Photo courtesy of Rockhill + Associates

Architect Dan Rockhill cites the elevated floor as an example of “vernacular tradition.” He used it for the 2005 Platform House in Platte County, Mo., by pouring a reinforced concrete floor, elevated above grade and containing a radiant-heating system.

“When you put a slab directly on soil, the subsurface support is unpredictable and you often get cracks and seepage,” Rockhill said. “This way is more expensive, but there’s more horsepower in the structure. I can insulate the floor thoroughly, there’s less infiltration, and it has better thermal performance than a full basement.”

Rockhill designed the Platform House, and built it, too. Rockhill & Associates, in Lawrence, Kan., builds all their own designs. The strength of the floor — Rockhill poured it himself — lends stability to the open structure. The roof is supported by engineered lumber over 24-foot clear span bays, so the 1,848-squarefoot interior is fully sunlit through windows on the 77-foot-long south wall. Translucent internal walls move on tracks. In winter, the concrete floor retains insolation heat. In summer, the breeze flows freely, west to east, through the length of the house.

Rockhill pioneered the 24-foot bay concept in the 2003 Kansas Longhouse. The main part of the house, clad in native limestone, is110 feet long, with a 15-foot breezeway at one end and a 15-foot garage at the other. A sod roof blends with the native grassland while moderating inside temperature, summer and winter.

Rockhill earned his master’s degree in architecture at the State University of New York in Buffalo, in 1976, and came in 1980 to teach at the University of Kansas. There, he founded Studio 804, a design-and-build program for third-year architecture students. In five months, the students conceive, site and build a house, often on an abandoned lot in a blighted neighborhood in Kansas City.

“We’ve done nine houses at Studio 804, including five stick-built houses built on site, and the rest made as pre-fabs in Lawrence and trucked to Kansas City,” Rockhill said. “These are very modern, affordable designs. We put them on lots we can buy for $300, and they’re snapped up by first-time buyers.”

Some of the houses, underwritten by community development corporations, have won design awards. Putting a stunning new $200,000 three-bedroom house in the middle of a run-down block makes the street trendy. Rockhill notes that it almost always leads to gentrification of the neighborhood.

A notable recent Rockhill design is the 2,400-square-foot Sensible House, completed in 2007 near Baldwin City, Kan. Fully wheel-chair accessible, this single-story three-bedroom house is built on a raised radiant-heated floor on a hilltop site. The bedroom wing at the north end of the platform sits high enough over grade to provide weather sheltered carport access beneath. A courtyard, 20 feet square, provides sun to the bedrooms, while the living/dining and office areas enjoy a south wall 15 feet high. Every room thus has floor-to-ceiling windows for insolation.

“A few site-related concepts go a long way,” Rockhill said. “I live on a farm and everything faces south. I know this works and am amazed at how ignorant most people remain about simple passive concepts.”

A more complex project is Lolomas, a low-income senior housing community in Clovis, N.M., now under construction for completion this year. Designed in conjunction with solar consultant Richard G. Chacon, Lolomas is intended to be nearly net-zero on energy use. Each of the 57 units has south-facing windows to maximize solar gain in winter. Additional heat is provided by evacuated tubes storing domestic hot water in tanks against the insulated north wall, with a small back-up electric boiler driven by a grid-tied 2,720 watts of photovoltaic modules laminated to the metal roof of each unit. Louvered covers and plantings for shade, along with window vents on the south side and thermal chimneys on the north, provide passive cooling in summer. They’re aided by the vented double PV roof and 10,000 gallons of glycol, cooled by PV-driven chillers during the day and stored in cisterns, at 40° F, for circulation to in-unit air handlers.

Even with all this sophistication, Lolomas incorporates a big helping of vernacular. “Our social model was the trailer park,” Rockhill said. “People told us they wanted a little yard or deck, and no stairs.”

About the author: Seth Masia is managing editor of SOLAR TODAY.

---

To read this article in print, order the May/June issue: pubs@ases.org. Or subscribe today, and don’t miss another issue. To subscribe, click here.

---

<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>