Dwell Homes Collection Open House
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
6:30-8:30 PM
Seattle Cedar Homes Model Home
4302 S. 104th Pl.
Seattle, WA 98178
If you are located in the Seattle area, and are interested in the plans designed by Joel Turkel for the Dwell Homes Collection, you are welcome to attend our open house at the Seattle Cedar Model Home on July 15th at 6:30 PM.
Joel Turkel will be presenting his plans and design process, showcasing several homes that are in the planning phase right now. Also, Sam Grawe, Editor in Chief of DWELL magazine, will talk about the advantages of modern prefab design in terms of design, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability, and how Lindal is a natural fit within the Dwell Homes Collection of sustainable and standardized modern prefab homes.
Light refreshments will be served, so your RSVP is appreciated. You can call us at 800 508-1833, or email blog (at) lindal (dot) com (replace the at’s and dot’s with their appropriate symbols), and let us know your names, number of attendees, and your building time frame/where you plan to build.
The designer, Joel Turkel, will be presenting the home plans (including the one pictured above) selected by DWELL magazine for the Dwell Home Collection.
Breaking news! Seattle homeowner Wendy Jans has certified her new custom Lindal home under the National Association of Homebuilders’ National Green Building Standard.
Working with her dealer, Tom Schuch of Seattle Cedar Homes, and a verifier from Green Dog Enterprises, her home was able to earn certification from the NAHB, as well as by the government-backed ENERGY STAR® Homes program and by Built Green®, a non-profit program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. Professional salvager Olympia Salvage partnered with expert green builders of MC Construction to deconstruct her old home and recycle or re-use all of the material in her new custom Lindal home.
You’ve probably heard the term before, which describes products and companies touting themselves as “green” and “non-toxic” and “environmentally friendly” in order to grab the attention of consumers who want to go green, but haven’t educated themselves on what it really means.
I read this article in TIME magazine (yes, the same magazine that recognized Lindal Cedar Homes in their May 2009 Green Design 100), outlining the efforts of world governments to regulate and control false and misleading claims by companies. Much like the way “low-calorie” was touted in the health-conscious ’90′s, countries are now taking steps to make it easier for citizens to make smart, green decisions – not knee-jerk reactions to marketing claims.
How does this relate to Lindal? you ask… Well, it’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison between custom housing and household cleaners, but the very fact that you are reading this obviously means that you want to educate yourself on what being green really means. Here at Lindal, our goal is to make it easy to be green. (Are you listening, Kermit T. Frog?)
The National Association of Home Builders has developed the National Green Building Program. It is similar to LEED, but allows for “levels” (or shades) of green that you can incorporate into your new home. The main reason for Lindal being chosen as the first systems-built home manufacturer in this program is because we can supply you, with little effort on your part, with the minimum requirements to build a NAHB-certified Bronze level green home.
Obviously, you will need to make your own decisions on the type of clothes washer, water heater and floor finishing products (among other things) that will ultimately be placed in your green home, but it sure helps to know that, with a Lindal home, you are starting with a home that is, quite literally, “green from the ground up.” And, with the help of your NAHB Certified Green Professional Lindal dealer, your new home can easily achieve the NAHB’s Silver or Gold status.
After a successful Dwell on Design LA ’09, it’s time to regroup and take a look at some of the other fabulous green home design initiatives that have been brewing this year here at Lindal.
“Dwell and Lindal Cedar Homes have tapped Joel Turkel of Turkel Designs, a veteran prefab architect, to design three new architectural designs that will be manufactured through the partnership with Lindal Cedar Homes known for their experience building environmentally responsive houses of natural materials. The Lindal/Turkel design team will also offer clients a custom home option in the Dwell Homes spirit.The partnership between Lindal and Turkelhas already won them accolades as one of the 2009 Design 100, thebest designed green products by Time Magazine (May 2009).” (Excerpted from DWELL press release.)
In February, Lindal Cedar Homes became the first green systems builder approved by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) as part of their National Green Building Program:
“Green building has arrived, and Lindal is clearly prepared to embrace it. Over the decades, Sir Walter Lindal’s leadership in this direction has been clear. He is an industry pioneer who has set a deliberate path in energy- and resource efficiency—the fruits of which are becoming more and more apparent today.” - Joel Robson, chairman of NAHB.
As part of this recognition, over 80% of Lindal dealers have become NAHB Certified Green Professionals after completing an intensive 5-day course on green design and construction. Interesting to note is that much of the material covered in the courses was already part of Lindal’s comprehensive and ongoing dealer training program, such as the importance of siting a home properly on the land, not just so the house has the best view, but also to take advantage of the natural features that will allow for passive solar gain in the the winter, use of the prevailing winds to help cool the home in the summer, and to minimize disturbance of the site during construction.
In conjunction with these partnerships, we released a new “mini” planning booklet, called The Lindal Experience 2009. It contains 9 new home plans, including those in the DWELL Homes collection, as well as details about our partnerships with the NAHB and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM). In addressing the difficulties that some people face when trying to finance a custom home, our partnership with WFHM makes it easy for our customers to secure financing with a mortgage lender that understands the Lindal process and building system.
In May, TIME magazine released their annual Green Design 100, recognizing Lindal’s DWELL Homes Collection plans in the “Architecture” category, under the heading “Sustainable Luxury” - Lindal being the only residential architecture firm with product available to the general public.
It’s great to be recognized by these prominent organizations. Even with this recognition, however, one of the questions that was asked several times during the Dwell on Design show was “What makes Lindal ‘green’?” As I mentioned above, one of the most important, yet often overlooked, aspects of green home design is proper siting of the home on your building lot. But with Lindal it goes beyond that. Being a pre-engineered, pre-cut building package of architectural-grade materials that is delivered to your building site, there is far less waste than with conventional stick-built homes. Our customers often remark on the fact that they “barely filled a dumpster during construction of our 2400-square-foot home!” Also, the Lindal building system, utilizing post-and-beam construction, allows for large, open spaces that facilitate air circulation, and can also reduce the surface area of the home which in turn reduces the amount of building materials.
Lindal is also commited to the sustainability of our building materials and, in the name of each of our homeowners, has planted enough trees through the Global ReLeaf program to replace those used to construct our homes.
Finally, I just want to give a shout out to the following blogs for their coverage of sustainable “green” products, and recognition of good design, including Lindal Cedar Homes! (Links open in a new window):
The word is out! Lindal is leading the pack when it comes to sustainable, environmentally-friendly green building practices. With over a dozen Turkel plans in the planning stages, and several scheduled for delivery this summer, I have it on good authority that the first open house for a Turkel-designed Lindal home in Washington state is just around the corner! Subscribe to updates via email or RSS feed, and you’ll be the first to know when and where…
Last weekend’s Dwell show was a huge success, with over 12,000 attendees over the course of 3 days. Our booth was near the back in the CB2 Outdoor Café, which was where all of the “outdoor” products were gathered: sheds, patio furniture, houses, landscaping, even barbeques. Across from our booth was a gleaming Airstream trailer, which I think would match nicely with the steel accents siding on the Lindal TD3 2100 plan!
The TD3 2100 - Can you see this with the matching Airstream out front?
The response to Lindal’s Turkel plans was overwhelmingly positive. We had over 700 people pick up an invitation to the next live webinars by Joel Turkel this summer, and several people met at length with our dealers at the booth. Speaking of which… a big thank you to area dealers Gary Myers of Santa Barbara Cedar Homes, Frank Vingiano of San Diego Custom Homes, and Dennis Sanford of Rainbow Valley Cedar Homes for taking three long days away from their offices and staffing the booth! I think they’ll agree that the response was overwhelmingly positive!
After a 4am wakeup call and plane ride to LA, I met several area Lindal dealers, company president Michael Harris, chairman Robert Lindal (my dad), and west coast area manager Kaveh Khatibloo at the Figueroa hotel for a SoCal Regional Meeting before heading over to the convention center to set up for the DODLA09 show.
These regional meetings are always productive, and I really enjoy being able to talk to our dealers face to face at these twice yearly events… they give us great insight on the local home building climate, which helps us in Seattle stay current on what people want in a Lindal home in different areas of the country (and around the world). I think the biggest accomplishment today was “nailing” down the California Fire Specification for Lindal home packages, and how we can spread the word that we have a system in place to help people rebuild after losing their homes to wildfire. (If you would like to know more about the fire spec building system that conforms to building code requirements in fire-prone areas such as southern California, leave a comment on this post and I’ll put you in touch with a local Lindal dealer who can help you get started.)
Pre-convention Impressions
Walking in to the Los Angeles Convention Center this evening was like walking into the pages of dwell magazine! Our booth is in the Dwell Outdoor section, surrounded by Wolf barbecue “ranges,” patio furniture that brings to mind Bucky Tubes (I’ll snag a photo tomorrow), and modern sheds – with butterfly roofs above corrugated metal siding and clerestory windows, a far cry from the big-box-store aluminum sheds stuck in the corners of suburban backyards around the country!
Right next door to us is Marmol Radziner Prefab, who is also featured in this year’s Dwell Homes Collection. As I entered the building I said a brief “hello” to Michela O’Connor Abrams, the publisher of dwell… now there’s one busy person this week! (She spoke at our Annual Dealer Meeting last January to help us kick off Lindal’s “warm, modern” home plans by Turkel Designs.)
I’ll post what’s noteworthy later this weekend, as well as photos of our booth, once everything is set up completely. My impression this evening was punctuated by little electric forklifts buzzing around, and I’m sure there will be folks continuing their elaborate setups until the wee hours!
I will also be posting LOTS of photos from the show on the Lindal Cedar Homes Flickr PhotoStream. This promises to be an exciting weekend, so make sure you’ve subscribed to updates using one of the tools on the top right corner of this blog!
On a completely unrelated note, after today’s news about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett I’m wondering what sort of impromptu gatherings might occur here in LA this weekend, as our convention is being held right next door to the Grammy Museum at Staples Center.
Lindal Cedar Homes is the world's largest manufacturer of quality custom cedar homes. We are known around the world for our signature post and beam building system, quality building materials and detailed craftsmanship.
In February, Lindal Cedar Homes became the first green systems builder approved by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) as part of their National Green Building Program:
