We were in France on vacation this year, and I was interested to see a growing deep green orientation there.  In the past, it has always felt like France was lagging behind Germany, Sweden, and the UK in addressing climate change on the ground.  I could feel a difference this year though – in the street art, growing bio street markets, and green initiatives. 

In Paris, a year long planning process resulted last year in “le Grand Paris“, sponsored by President Sarkozy as a way to reshape the capitol to have a smaller footprint in the coming centuries.  Several new deep green skyscrapers, such as Hypergreen, have been proposed in the last several years.  Just in the last two years, Paris has started a dedicated effort to promote bicycling, and there was a new bike rental program called Velib which was used by lots of folks, including commuters – in a short amount of time it has become a great success. 

zHome at Hypergreen display, Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine

Out in the countryside, PV panels were showing up on roofs.  Folks said the big controversy was the local planning authorities were concerned about the aesthetic integration of the panels on the historic tile roofs.   All in all, really positive signs – you could feel the change in the air.

PV installers' van

As I wrote earlier, Howland Homes has formed a joint venture partnership with Ichijo USA to build zHome.  I have been working now with Ichijo USA for a few months and have had the great pleasure of working with their excellent staff.  I thought it would be interesting to interview Akinobu Ohno, the President of Ichijo USA, to get his perspective on their company and their new work on zHome.

Q: Tell us a little bit about Ichijo as a company.

A: Since our company, Ichijo, was established on 1978, we have focused on the business for custom-built houses. Unlike as is typical in the United States, our custom homes are factory built, and thus able to be offered at more typical production home prices.  Currently, we have more than 3,400 employees, and last year, we built more than 8,000 houses nationwide in Japan (revenues were approximately 2.1 billion US Dollars).  Although there are many major home builders in Japan,  Ichijo was ranked  No.1 in performance in Super-Insulated Houses (“Energy Efficient Houses” in broad sense), and had the No.1 track record in Seismically-Isolated Houses as well. 

Prebuilt wall panels being fabricated

Q:  zHome is Ichijo’s first venture in the United States. I think this says a lot about both zHome and Ichijo. What was attractive to you about zHome?

A:  It was August last year when we first heard about the zHome project.  The  net zero energy consumption design concept of zHome is exactly the same direction where Ichijo is heading. Last year, when we found out about zHome, we wanted to know our worldwide position in energy efficiency performance, and how our houses would be evaluated by the people and construction industry of the US, which is the country of origin of wood framed construction.

One more attractive thing is that there is the participation of a great home builder, Howland Homes.  Just like us, Howland Homes is oriented toward environmentally-friendly houses. I am sure that we could not move forward by ourselves without their sincere cooperation. It was only a couple of days when we stayed in Seattle last year, where we met Matt Howland and learned about zHome.  So, I would say it was a miracle that both of us could meet each other and we were able to find out about the zHome project during our brief stay.  It will be very impressive for our colleagues as well as our customers in Japan if they know that we are participating in this project in the US.

Q:  I understand Ichijo has an innovative housing model in Japan, the i-cube.  Can you tell us more about it?

A:  Briefly speaking, there are three key features in the i-cube. First, very high insulation performance, second, very high air-tightness performance, and third and most important, that we could provide reasonable and affordable price to our customers in Japan.  In combination with other hi-tech items, i.e. heat pump, heat exchange ventilation, and PV systems, these enable the i-cube to be an ideal highly energy efficient house.  Based on all these energy efficient components, the i-cube uses about 54% of the energy of a similar sized and configured home built to the Washington State Energy Code.

i-cube under construction

The current Japanese home buying market is primarily focused on durability, as well as homes being earthquake proof. However, new home durability mainly benefits the  next generation, and a giant earthquake might happen less than one or two times in a lifetime, while highly energy efficient houses are closely related to your daily comfort and daily energy expense.  But then again, most Japanese home buyers are hesitant to buy highly energy efficient houses with significant extra budget. So, we think that innovations in reasonable pricing for highly efficient homes are most important for them to become widespread, and then it will finally contribute to a large amount of CO2 reduction.

Q:  What sorts of other innovations has Ichijo introduced in its homes?

A:  Among other things, we are proud to introduce our Seismically-Isolated Houses.  This is a technology which physically isolates the home from earthquakes.  It involves the homes being built on a large set of vibration controllers which sit between the foundation and the home structure.  We developed it in partnership with Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire and rubber company. We have a track record of 3,600 Seismically-Isolated Houses as of Dec. 2009, and the No. 1 track record in total number of Seismically-Isolated Houses so far built in Japan.  [Ed:  There is a very cool short film of the interior of a seismically isolated home versus a conventional home in a simulated earthquake on the Ichijo website.  Scroll down the page and click on the images to view.] 

Seismically-isolated home demonstration at testing laboratory

We have also developed heat exchanger ventilation systems which have a 90% heat recovery rate, radiant floor heating systems, and double paned windows we build ourselves.  This enables us not only to minimize costs, but to optimize quality control through the entire production process. We manufacture more than 70% of the total housing components which go into the i-cube, and we need only 45 working days of construction for home completion once the foundation is complete and the components are on the building site.      

Q:  On a personal note, what have been your impressions of the United States?  Is it the same or different than you imagined?

A:  Thanks to the zHome project, I was able  to visit the US for the first time. I was very much impressed that there is so much green, forests, and the beautiful waterfront in greater Seattle area, and it reminded me of the importance of consciousness about sustainability. 

Also, business infrastructure through the internet, specifically the websites of each government agency, is very advanced and well organized. I did not feel any discomfort with starting business here in US.

zHome starts construction tomorrow, April 6th!  After some initial utility work, we will be installing the ground source wells.  I will do a separate post on that, and include some video so you can see what it’s all about.  We will also have an onsite informal get together next week if folks want to view the well drilling.  We will be continuing construction for about a year, when we will open for public tours.

So, how did this come about?  Howland Homes, our builder partner, has formed a joint venture with Ichijo USA, which is providing project financing.  Ichijo USA is the American subsidiary to the Ichijo Group of Japan, which is a major homebuilder there.  Last year they built about 8,000 homes with a total sales value of $2.1 billion. Ichijo is currently building highly energy-efficient homes in Japan, including the i-cube, which includes a heavily-insulated exterior (R-30 walls) and air source heat pumps as standard specification.  They completely get what zHome is about, and have been real leaders and innovators in their home market. 

It feels great to be starting construction.  The team is really excited to begin our education program and start rolling with our market transformation.  I am personally incredibly excited to have Ichijo as part of the project.  zHome is now international in scope, influencing not only Issaquah, the Puget Sound region, and the Northwest, but potentially Japan as well.  If we are going to be serious about addressing climate change, it is going to be these sorts of international partnerships that are going to do it.

More on details of all this as we move forward – I just wanted to get the word out!

Think about just about any industry – telecommunications, computers, aerospace, heck, even automotive – and the list of innovation and progress over the last 100 years is long.  Think about where all those industries were 100 years ago – the state of the art for those industries were:

• -crank telephones through a community switchboard
• -mechanical adding machine
• -the very earliest airplanes (Wright Bros. flight was in 1903)
• -Ford Model T (prototype 1908)

How many of those pieces of technology are actually in use today, without massive improvements?

Then consider housing.  The history of innovation in housing over the last century and a half is short, and a lot of it happened a LONG time ago:

• 1833    Stick framing invented
• 1920s  Beginnings of widespread home electrification
• 1930s  Forced air furnaces introduced
• 1940s  Basic insulation mandated by code
• 1970s  Double paned windows become standard

The house we live in was built in 1925.  Its tiny garage is sized to fit a Model T (or, a Smart Car!).  When I look at our house and compare it to a new one, it’s not all that different – the rooms are smaller, there was no insulation in the walls until five years ago, at some point along the way the coal burning stove was replaced with forced air, and it has single paned windows.  But really, that’s it. 

I don’t think that an “innovation is a priori good” stance is a reasonable, don’t get me wrong.  Thinking about Christopher Alexander’s A Timeless Way of Building, I think there’s a strong case to be made that the materials and methods that stand the test of time are a good way to go.  Heck, even in zHome we are making the case – particularly in the world of materials – where we are even harkening back thousands of years and finishing some walls in clay. 

For me the core issue is that we think about what we’re doing.  To me the home is the lowest hanging fruit of potential environmental innovation.   Homes are so core to who we are, and their share of our environmental footprint is so big, that a concerted reevaluation of what home is seems in order.  Through that process, I think we’re likely to find that some of the answers lie far in the past, and others in the untapped future.

We had a beautiful, sunny day for our groundbreaking ceremony and celebration on September 29th.  A number of speakers, including Mayor Ava Frisinger, King County Executive Ron Sims, Puget Sound Energy Vice President Cal Shirley, Port Blakely Communities President Alan Boeker, and Governor Gregoire’s senior policy analyst for climate change Kathleen Drew, shared a few words about Zhome and what the project means for the region.  This was followed by a ribbon cutting event, where we presented some of the technologies to be used in the project – PV panels, double wall construction, rainwater reuse, and ultragreen materials.  Later, we had a party on site – about a hundred folks came to share the excitement of getting this project off the ground.  It was a great day!

Issaquah Mayor Ava Frisinger

It takes my breath away a little to be writing this inaugural blog post.  It was two and a half years ago that a small group of us, representing different organizations and perspectives, under the leadership of the City of Issaquah, got together to pursue building an out-of-the-box housing development that drove to the heart of environmental problems.  We wanted to build something revolutionary – something that would inspire the average person with a vision for how mainstream housing could be radically – not incrementally – greener, yet be market rate, and a cool place to live.  A project with audacious goals like true zero net energy/zero net carbon emissions.  I think zHome has achieved that vision, and can’t wait to share with you all its construction and evolution.  Over the coming year, the site will grow, and we will be sharing as we learn via the blog and the Dig Deeper sections of the site.  Sign up for email updates if you would like to know when the site is updated, or for upcoming events and classes.

If this project has taught me anything, it is that turning something this visionary into reality takes an incredible amount of work by a number of folks.  Many, many people have touched and affected zHome already, including our Mayor and City Council, our friends at Howland Homes, our terrific partners, and our great design team.  While the vision of zHome has captured people’s imaginations and helped propel it forward, it definitely didn’t happen by accident.  Thank you to everyone who has brought it to this point!

This is a picture of a young friend of mine playing in a pea patch.  Ultimately, zHome is about the future – showing that there are real, hopeful solutions to our significant environmental problems.  There’s a lot of handwringing going on about how to address climate change, salmon habitat, deforestation, environmental health – the list goes on.  Housing is a big part of our environmental footprint – and zHome provides a way forward into the future.

Brad Liljequist – zHome Project Manager, City of Issaquah