by Leah Hardesty
Olivia Bejarano is dressed in black from head-to-toe. A splash of color bursts from her blonde hair. She nervously waits for the first hammer to strike her 60-year-old family home. The dilapidated house she’s lived in since childhood is being torn down. The structure was condemned by officials in her hometown of Guadalupe, Arizona. In essence, the old house is being laid to rest.
Bejarano hesitates to shed a tear. In a few months she’ll be standing in the very same place. A brand new house will replace the old. It will embrace the past while looking toward the future.
The new Bejarano home will accommodate an expanding family and honor her culture. It also will be built to sustain itself in a way that saves both money and precious natural resources. A state-of-the-art system will collect and preserve water. Another will trap sunlight for heat and manipulate shade to cool. The home also will be built at an affordable price.
Seem too good to be true? It’s not. Fast forward one year. The evidence stands in Guadalupe on the very lot where Bejarano’s old home once stood.
The new home is constructed entirely of green materials and techniques. The builders included Arizona State University students and young adults from YouthBuild, Phoenix JobCorps, and Habitat for Humanity. All the eco-friendly building materials and technologies were donated or given at a discounted price and produced in Arizona.
The new Bejarano home is part of a multi-tiered effort led by researchers and designers at the ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family. Their goal is to set a new standard in affordable housing in Arizona and the nation. In addition to conducting research and influencing policy, the Stardust Center is coordinating the building affordable communities across Maricopa County.
Bejarano’s home marks the center’s second Affordable + Sustainable Design/Build project. Project members build prototype homes in low-income communities while teaching green-building principles to high school and college students.
Lofty goals
“We focus on the affordable and sustainable qualities for building a new a home. But we’re also interested in how housing can be improved for everyone, including low-income families,” says Daniel Glenn, design director at the Stardust Center.
ASU is one of a handful of universities in the nation with a research-based design/build program focused on developing homes that are both affordable and green. While “being green” has become a “hot” and mainstream topic globally, rarely does cost weigh into the conversation.
Researchers at ASU Stardust Center hope to change that. Their long-term goal is to apply these efficient models to the housing industry. They want to convince builders to produce large-scale subdivisions of affordable and earth-friendly homes.
The green movement is expanding. “Eventually the housing industry will be forced to design more efficient housing because America will demand it,” Ernesto Fonseca says. Fonseca is construction manager for the project and low energy-design specialist for ASU Stardust Center.
Fonseca says that developers continue to build wood-framed houses because it’s fast and cheap. He thinks that it is a substandard way to build homes.
“The current method for building homes uses 60 percent raw materials. Little if any recyclable materials are used. These new homes use 65 percent of our total electrical consumption,” Fonseca explains. “Builders could do so much better; they’re just not pushing the envelope.”
Fonseca, Glenn, and other ASU researchers decided to set an example for Arizona with the Bejarano home in Guadalupe. The small town just a few miles from ASU’s Tempe campus has long been burdened with stagnant development and poverty. The town’s mayor was happy to accept the Stardust Center’s offer to build one of its prototype homes within town limits.
“Guadalupe is one of the poorest communities in the state. It has needs,” Glenn says. “But it also boasts and an active, vibrant Yaqui and Mexican-American culture that offered unique possibilities for the home’s design,” Glenn says.
News of the project spread quickly through the small town. Bejarano and her husband, Aurelio, volunteered to become the proud homeowners. “This project helped us to build a dream home, but in an affordable way,” she says.
The Bejaranos agreed to let researchers monitor their new home for one year to test its energy performance. ASU researchers are looking to confirm their computer model predictions based on actual energy performance. During the design phase, many components were selected that should contribute to energy and cost savings.
The design team was led by Glenn. It also included Fonseca for energy analysis, and Nic Smith for construction documents and digital modeling. The team developed the design as part of a community workshop. Homeowners and Guadalupe residents helped to generate a culturally-responsive design. Fonseca did the calculations to determine how and where to incorporate eco-friendly building techniques and materials.
He evaluated every design aspect—square footage of windows, wall type and size, roof type, water collection, air infiltration, heating/cooling, lighting, house orientation, and family use. His recommendations were geared to achieve efficiency and affordability.
Fonseca then calculated expected energy use based on the recommended techniques and materials. He also factored in the family’s characteristics (i.e. size, lifestyle, habits).
“Our computer model isolates certain portions of the home,” Glenn explains. “As a result, our data can demonstrate the sustainable impact of each essential product that went into building this home.”
Most of the design techniques and materials address air quality, energy efficiency, and alternative resources. The Bejarano’s new home is expected to need minimal cooling in the summer and limited heating in the winter. Sunlight is largely used in place of artificial lighting. Proper shading and orientation will protect the home during torrid Arizona summer months.
The home has thick walls made of Navajo FlexCrete, an aerated fly-ash concrete block produced and donated by the Navajo Nation. The walls provide mass and insulation that maintains a balanced temperature within the home year round.
Solar panels were donated by ASU’s Photovoltaic Testing Lab and installed on the rooftop. The panels are expected to provide 90 percent of the home’s electrical energy needs. Other energy-saving features include a tankless water heater system, and double-paned Energy Star-rated windows.
The home has a flat roof. It is protected from both sun and rain by a product called MirrorSeal. The material is completely non-toxic and waterproof. MirrorSeal is pure white in color. It reflects the sun’s rays and greatly reduces the roof’s heat absorption.
The roof also is made of structural insulated panels. They provide an insulation R-value of 30. There is no attic. In traditional homes, an attic stores excess heat and forces air-conditioning units to work harder.
An alternative air-conditioning system was provided by Alter-Air, a Tempe-based company, The system uses one-third the energy of a conventional system. It cools the home with a closed-loop water-chiller that eliminates the need for compressed Freon.
“Air-conditioning ducts placed within un-insulated attic spaces can reach temperatures of 150 degrees in the summer. They act like an oven on the home’s ceiling. As a result, more energy is needed to cool the air,” says Glenn.
The Bejarano house has a built-in rainwater-harvesting system. It collects water for future use – potentially saving 5,869 gallons of water per year. Water also is conserved with dual-flush toilets and a grey-water collection system to irrigate the home’s courtyard.
What does this all mean for Bejarano? For one, more money in her pocket. The home’s cost-saving techniques will benefit the family both short- and long-term. Fonseca predicts the family’s electrical bill should be approximately $10 to $30 per month because of the home’s design and its solar panels.
In future years, the family will save money on energy. Over a 40-year period, Fonseca says that most Arizona families will pay upwards of $80,000 for their electricity. By using the 300 days of guaranteed sunshine in Arizona, Fonseca expects the new solar-equipped home will cost the Bejaranos roughly $6,000 to $8,000 in the same 40-year period.
Because of the home’s expected energy efficiency, it was selected to be part of the U.S. Green Building Council’s pilot program to develop its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes rating system. The new system stems from the LEED Green Building Rating System™ for commercial buildings and is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. Smith is Stardust Center’s in-house LEED-certified professional. He is leading the effort to obtain the home’s certification.
Cultural components
Many components of the home’s design that met standards for minimal energy needs also attribute to meeting cultural needs. Guadalupe is a predominantly Pascua-Yaqui and Mexican-American community. Residents have managed to preserve a degree of cultural and geographic uniqueness while participating in the economic and political structure of Phoenix's society. Designers kept this powerful element in mind as they designed the home. They incorporated traditional Mexican design techniques to create natural cooling and ventilation.
For example, The L-shaped layout of the home creates a courtyard equipped with a shaded trellis and water fountain to keep the area cool. This helps to cool the home naturally. The courtyard also serves as a place for frequent large family gatherings, a common tradition among Mexican-Americans.
“When you trap cool air and add shading, water features, and vegetation, the courtyard becomes its own microclimate,” Glenn explains. “Essentially, it acts as the “lungs” of the house. This is how our ancestors remained cool during the summer before air-conditioning.
Other culturally-responsive elements include a combined kitchen, dining, and living area. The kitchen becomes the heart of the home. A separate casita serves as a room for adult children who share the home in this multi-generational household.
The Bejarano house is designed to expand into a second floor. Many families in Guadalupe often add onto their homes as their families grow. In addition, this home is designed to accommodate the future possibility of a wheelchair-bound resident.
The actual project cost the Bejaranos about $90,000. Costs were lower because of donated labor and discounted materials. Researchers at the ASU Stardust Center estimate that a production version of this home would cost approximately $140,000, excluding the solar panels and air-conditioning system.
The future vision is that mainstream developers will incorporate green building into the design of a community because of the environmental and monetary impact.
“This is a prototype home. Our next step is to work with a builder to create an entire community of different configurations – the options are endless,” says Glenn.
Culturally and environmentally responsive homes build healthier families psychologically and physically. Fonseca hopes that research at the Stardust Center will be enough proof to encourage public and private sectors to build more thoughtfully-designed homes.
“Better designed homes create healthier families and a healthier environment for everyone,” he says.
Olivia Bejarano’s face beamed with joy when she opened the door to her new home. If that look was any indication, it’s clear a happy life lies ahead for her family.
The Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family is located at the ASU Downtown Center in Phoenix, Ariz. For more information, call 480.727.5456. Send e-mail to stardustcenter@asu.edu