Building one's own house is the kind of personal Odyssey that relatively few of us will tackle in any real sense, as most building is now done through a series of architects and contractors.(*) But for Portland residents Dustin and Garrett Moon, the house they are building is much more than a customized place to live. They are trying to build the first residence in the US that meets the Cascadia Green Building Council's Green Building Challenge standards, which means their house must generate its own energy, capture and treat its own water, and be both sexy and efficient.(*) It also means that cookie-cutter design and easy licensing are not viable options.

Garrett Moon runs the tech side of things, while Dustin is mainly concerned with the physical de/re/construction process. Their skill and drive are showcased by their actions, whether it is Garrett's excellent websites,(*)rescommunis.org(*)(*)and(*)pdxlivingbuilding.com, which feature detailed architectural plans, or Dustin's efforts to take apart the house board-by-board in order to reuse and recycle as much material as possible.(*) Their aim is to not only build a self-sustaining home, but to make the entire process as low-impact as possible.(*) As Dustin said, "It's not enough to build a sustainable house, you have to make sure that everything from process to materials is as sustainable as possible."

The greening of America cannot be approached in an ends-justify-the-means fashion, because a sustainable system must have sustainable inputs as well as sustainable operations.(*) The Moons are taking a holistic approach, and while they are being forced to make compromises, their efforts are geared toward being as sustainable and as imitable as possible.(*) Figuring out how to pursue a more sustainable collective existence is the great task of our time, and the Moon's Living House has been a huge inspiration to me by showing me how a daunting but crucial(*)process can be approached by normal people with normal resources.(*)(*) Read on for more details…



As the fuel, food, and water crises begin to affect even the long-insulated first world, the words "sustainable,"(*)"organic"(*)and "green" have become buzzwords and sales points, easily found a million times within the walls of a single supermarket.(*) But while it takes certain steps to be able to label a product "organic," there are no such requirements for other popular terms.(*) Greenwashing has become a booming market force, where it runs the gamut from "green homes" (some obviously much greener than others) to "green appliances" (a useful rundown).(*) Naturally, some of these claims of energy efficiency and low pollutants are valid, while others are merely clever(*)marketing.(*) It's important to(*)look at the process by which a product is created and delivered as well;(*) an energy-efficient dryer built in a massively underregulated Chinese factory may save you money on electricity while actually creating more net pollution than a traditional dryer.(*)



It is the Moon brothers' ambition to build a Living House with sincerely sustainable roots.(*) Their plans are quite ambitious and include passive solar, water collection in a 12,000 gallon cistern, a solar array, an underground workshop, sunroom, and 8 inches of arable soil on the roofs.(*) When I first met Dustin and Garret Moon at the beginning of the year, the lot on 2222 Woodward in SE Portland was occupied by a dilapidated and junk-filled house from the early 1900's. As of last week, the lot is a gently-sloped hole in the ground.(*)(*)The foundation has been excavated and trucked away, and the lumber from the old house is neatly stacked in a massive pile across the street.(*) I visited the site today, and the foundation for the workshop is being poured this week.(*) See their current photos on Flicker.

Perhaps the most startling revelation to me about this project is the fact that the technology for sustainable building is not only available, but in many cases, predates modern building practices.(*) Rainwater collection is nothing new, nor are living roofs or solar panels or skylights or passive solar.(*) The main obstacles that the Moons have faced have come from the difficulty inherent in getting their plans through the county building offices, as building codes are incredibly slanted toward the tried-and-tired (and generally very wasteful) construction techniques of woodframe houses.(*) A particularly difficult issue has arisen over their desire to deal with their own greywater, which is illegal in Oregon.(*) The Moons hope that a bill currently before the Oregon legislature will legalize private greywater treatment by the time they complete their house in 2009.

Garret Moon emphasised his desire to smooth the way for similar projects, both by streamlining the planning and pre-construction phases, and by ensuring that their house(*)is a model for(*)lowbudget green construction.(*) "If a process isn't sustainable, its product cannot be sustainable, and if you can't afford a process or product as a normal person, it isn't sustainable."(*)

In a similar vein, Dustin pointed out that we often examine only one aspect of a product or project when discussing sustainability, but the reality is that a truly sustainable home is one that fits into a larger ecosystem.(*) "When the focus is on discrete, individual issues, people can(*)get isolated or blinded and forget that everything and everyone(*)are connected, that everything relates and relies on everything else.(*) It's easy to focus on architecture or agriculture or transport, or on smaller subsections thereof, but there are no seperate issues; in the long term, we are talking about the global ecosystems that support human life on earth."

The Moons' Living House is an inspiration to me, and has fuelled my interest in the greening of America.(*) To successfully thrive in the 21st century, America is going to have to make massive changes in its social structure and infrastructure.(*) While we've started seeing wind and solar arrays, the great gas guzzlers still roam and asphalt tiles still suck sunrays atop houses.(*) The Moons are before their time, but only slightly; they are the foam of the coming wave, the rumble of the train through the tracks, and I am excited beyond words to watch their house rise from the ground over the coming year.(*)

Recommended Reading:(*) Bill Mollision, Permaculture I & II; Wikipedia: Permaculture;(*)Other write-ups of the Moons' projects:(*) PDX Green; Portland Architecture.




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