zHomes

1.zHome

            On our Seattle trip for Interior Design we stopped at many places once such place is zHomes.  The philosophy of the development affected my thinking for designing residential spaces because, I never thought about using green design in an apartment or townhouse setting.  The only place I have thought of using them is in schools or business buildings.  The most important idea that I found during our visit at zHomes was the fact that they used was the ‘Heat Recovery Ventilator’.  I was blown away by what this little ventilator does and how tightly sealed each zHome are.  Each home is sealed twice to help prevent the cold air from seeping into the house.  Since the house is so tightly sealed the home needs a ventilator. The ventilator pulls the heated stale air through the house and pumps in cold fresh air which then heats the air up a bit so the heater system doesn’t need to heat up the air in the house as much keeping the heating bill much lower than in a normal house.  The important aspect of human interaction with the built space is very important.  Since the space that we saw which was a loft apartment, it was very small so human interaction is very important in that small of a space.  The design of the zHome helped the design of small space by using big windows to let natural light in.  For that small of a space it was spread out very nicely.  I enjoyed our trip to the zHomes, I learned a lot there.