Fine Homebuilding has a new article on the future of framing house plans. For many years we have been framing houses basically the same way. And this way is not necessarily the most energy efficient or material efficient. The article makes the following recommendations to increase energy efficiency and to reduce material and labor costs at the same time:

- use 2x6 wall framing at 24" o.c. (in lieu of 16" o.c.)
- use 1" rigid foam insulation in lieu of traditional sheathing
- eliminate headers w… Continue

This is a v. cool article. Architecture firm WATG and design consultancy firm IDEO (that's where Twitter was born!) have teamed up.

Two awesome companies! The only result can be success. Great work!

Link: http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx?ArticleId=2150&Arti… Continue

The folks over at SoftwareAdvice.com just released an interesting analysis of the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) on the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) on construction employment on a state by state basis. Though the da… Continue

The housing industry (builders and designers) is in dire need of a new system / approach to building. I'll list a few reasons here:
- Construction costs and land / development costs have gotten out of control in recent years.
- The housing bubble has dramatically dropped the value of our homes.
- The fact right now is that you cannot build a new home inexpensive enough to compete with the glut of existing homes on the market.
- If we are seeing an economic recovery it's a small one - and the job… Continue