7.47.USA-12-detail-b Sun Valley, Idaho Highlights Relevant to Sustainable Design:
Continue to go local with local materials, techniques, and talent.
This house has a stone hearth with the stones sourced from the region. Local river stones were used by early American settlers of the west for creating the critical hearth for cooking and heating. Those two functions are largely replaced with stoves and heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, but the tradition of using local river stones continues today. The stones have the thermal mass, which stores and radiates the heat well after the fire is out.
By contrast, the settlements of the East Coast colonies had more brick fireplaces and chimneys than stone, in part because clay was more readily available in those regions than stone. The “Think Global. Act Local.” mantra of the green movement, initiated in the 1970s, has many roots, and the advantages of using local materials are numerous. At very least, local material sourcing reduces transportation cost and emissions output.
Author and illustrator: Charlie Szoradi is an architect, inventor, and the CEO of Independence LED Lighting. He writes about many other topics related to local river stones and other local material integration through his extensive travels around the world.
If you have found this posting online, it is an excerpt from Mr. Szoradi’s book Learn from Looking that served as the inspiring seed content for this drawing share resource. For additional drawings and insights on log cabins and local river stones, we hope that you enjoy exploring LearnfromLooking.com. You can search via general terms such as sustainability as well as narrower terms such as local river stones, fireplaces, and HVAC.
