Portfolio Images: Residential Lower Level Build-Out

My passion project is (mostly) complete!  Finishing the lower level of our home was a thrilling, frustrating, creative, and exhausting proposition to take on... and I couldn't be happier with the results.  Small details remain, but it is fully functional and well-loved by our family.

Main Space

Entertainment Area

Game Area

Bar

Exercise Room

Almost Finished!

So many small details remain to be installed, but I can't resist posting a few quick pictures now that the painting of the lower level has been completed.  It's been a long journey but worth all the time and money - it's gorgeous and I couldn't be happier with the result.

Main area with view to fireplace

Fireplace with bookshelves and future art panel

View to bar

Exercise room is up and running!

The floors are in!

The floors are finished and the "lower level" is taking shape.  Cabinets and trim are coming next week - fingers crossed it will be finished and usable (with better quality photos) soon!

main space

fireplace

wine cellar

exercise room

playing soccer!

Latest Construction Photos

Our "lower level" is coming along nicely - check it out!  After a delay due to stone availability and summer vacation schedules, we've started back in full swing and the masonry was finished today.  Next week, the FSC certified engineered flooring is installed.  And after that, we wait again for FSC wood availability to make the cabinets.  Fingers crossed it is finished mid-August!

main space 

fireplace 

wine cellar 

entertainment 

bar 

exercise room 

Backyard Living Space

Backyard Proposal by Amy Coffman Phillips for Liquid Triangle Sustainability

This is why I love having friends who buy houses - I get to think of fun ways to spend their money!  I have a friend who bought a beautiful home in the downtown area of a local suburb.  The lots are usually pretty small, but she found one larger than most and wanted to expand the living space back there to include an outdoor kitchen and fireplace as well as some additional seating.  I'm pretty happy with it - I hope she is too!

What I've been doing for the last month...

My Future Basement

I haven't been posting much about biomimicry lately, for a good reason.  I've been spending all my spare time working on a pricing and construction set for my basement build out.  It's been really fun to dive back into the world of architecture, design, and even CAD and I'm excited to transform the concrete dungeon to a fun entertainment space for my family.  We'll likely start construction in a month and I'll post photos of things I find interesting, but for now back to biomimicry!

Local Biomimicry

As a part of my coursework on Biomimicry's Life's Principle to "Be Locally Attuned and Responsive," I wrote an informal white paper on the intersection of Biomimicry and the Transition Town network using my town of Naperville, Illinois, as a case study.  I posed the question,

"What would Naperville look like if it followed the biomimicry principle to be ‘locally attuned and responsive’ in all of its (re)designs?"  

This fits in with our theme for the year at Greendrinks Naperville of local resilience in the face of peak oil and was written to further this discussion.  If you have time to spare and care to read and comment, I would love to hear your thoughts.  Read my paper "Local Biomimicry" here.  

Happy Spring!

Multi-Functional Design

Recent one page report on Life's Principle to be resource (material & energy) efficient, focused on the sub-principle to design multi-functionally.

"Birth"

My only sister had her first child the day I created this piece, so birth was on my mind.  When I thought of the phrase “life creates conditions conducive to life,” I was drawn to the idea of life creation and the cyclical nature of the phrase, beginning and ending with “life.”  I thought about the intricacies of our bodies and how every condition must be ideal to create and sustain life.  I reflected on how most life begins with an egg, either inside or outside of a mother’s body, and I thought about how an egg is an oblong circular shape, ideal in shape and strength to protect the fragile life within.  For these reasons, I chose to represent mother and child as humans cocooned in an egg.  I then gave the piece to my sister, Sarah, to commemorate the birth of her son, Ambrish.    

Life's Principles Project #1

I just submitted my first project for my Biomimicry Life's Principles class and I have to say - it was so much fun.  I was tasked with creating a hypothetical marketing campaign for Life's Principles and I chose to market to college students.  Today’s college students will inherit the world that we create, and we need to inspire them to create a better world for tomorrow.  

How many of us signed up for multiple credit cards we didn’t need in college just to get a free t-shirt – and they weren’t even attractive shirts!?  T-shirts are great ways to grab a college student’s attention with the hope that they will be interested to learn more, and this strategy is even more effective if the shirts are worn by professors and students they admire.  This person-to-person marketing campaign targets college-aged students who, as a group, are mature enough to know the direction in which they want to take their life may be undecided about how to channel their ambitions.   

The t-shirt uses the slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle, (re)THINK.”  While the concepts of Life’s Principles reach well beyond the materially focused 3Rs, I have used it because it plays into concepts associated with environmentalism that are already prevalent in American culture.  It would allow the Biomimicry Group to play off of these already familiar ideas and refocus the mind of the reader.  

This campaign will introduce the basic concepts of Biomimicry’s Life’s Principles to those that are young, impressionable, and energetic enough to make a difference!

Happy Harvest!

001, originally uploaded by dgphilli.

Proposed Kitchen Retrofit

My friend wants to redo her kitchen and she asked me to send a few quick sketches her way for inspiration. She has a suburban split level home built in the 1970s. As you walk in the front door, an existing L-shaped kitchen with breakfast table is straight ahead with sliding glass doors that overlook a screened in porch and large yard. Her husband is a contractor, so I think she'll get a deal on the construction. Here were the ideas I sent her.

Scheme 1: Kitchen Location to Remain
This scheme keeps the kitchen where it is, demolishes a partition wall between the kitchen and dining, and creates an open concept kitchen/dining room with a breakfast bar. This was the approach she and her husband were thinking of when she talked to me. The problems associated with this design are that it requires moving the sliding glass doors to the dining room side, replacing the window to fit above the counters, and exterior brick work associated with this move. It would also result in people looking at the kitchen sink immediately upon entering the home, which could be a problem.

Scheme 1 Plan: Kitchen Location to Remain

Suburban Backyard Garden

When we decided to move to the Chicago area from New York, we chose a suburb with great schools for our two little kids. We chose this house for its walkable, downtown location but also for its south facing back yard. After years of container gardening, I was looking forward to growing food in a large, ground-based location.

The yard had "great bones" when we purchased it - a large maple shade tree centered on the back door and medium sized bushes planted by the previous owner. We added the fence to create a safe place for the kids to play. We removed about one-third of the backyard grass in favor of a french style square foot garden, a cedar playhouse, and garden beds to surround the minimized turf. The garden itself is approximately 150sf of annual beds, 200 sf of perennial herbs, 50 sf of berry bushes, and ample space for decorative flowers and trees and bushes for privacy.

Penthouse Terrace Garden

Seating with a View

This penthouse terrace was my view from our dining room in our Jersey City apartment in 2007. The terrace was approximately 12' x 10' and was on the 23rd story of a large apartment building. Its exposure was to the south-west, so our microclimate was very warm and very windy. I had a Rosemary plant overwinter in our USDA Zone 7 and we were able to be outside in the afternoon with short sleeves in March.

Small coffee nook

I am an avid gardener, as you may notice from my posts. I was not satisfied with a few pots of ornamental plants. I needed space to grow food, flowers, and space to sit and enjoy my view of the Statue of Liberty.

Concept Plan

East Hampton NY Residence

Enlarged model courtesy of Cook+Fox Architects

While working at Cook+Fox Architects in New York, I had the unique opportunity to help design and construct an immense single family home in East Hampton, New York.  The owners came to my previous employer, Rick Cook, specifically because of previous work he had done out there as well as his knowledge and passion for green building.  I got to work on the project because I am a die-hard greenie and had a working knowledge of the technical aspects of green building.  And I had time, a precious commodity at any architecture firm.

The East Hampton home was designed to LEED 2.1 standards before LEED for Homes was released.  While this rating system was not entirely appropriate to this project type, we felt it was a good starting point.  And, due to its size, this project would never qualify for LEED for Homes, which is directed more at builders of tract housing.  We also actively pursued passive survivability issues as Hurricane Katrina and her remnants were forefront in our minds.  We also though hard about luxury homes, both the resource intensiveness of them as well as their inevitability, and decided to pursue green systems on this house as a case study for what can be done. 

Green Features Graphic courtesy of Cook+Fox Architects

The concepts we focused on were preserving the natural dune characteristics of this site on the beach, using open geothermal wells for cooling to eliminate the need for noisy compressors, creating movable storm shutters and storm serge mitigation in case of a hurricane event, and working with an award-winning interior designer to use sustainable materials.  We were also proud of our work to educate and work with the contractor on his first "green" home. 

Building Section Courtesy Cook+Fox Architects

Ever the building science nerd, I was excited when we had the fortune to hire Joe Lstiburek for a day to speak to our office and review our drawings to provide insight.  From him we learned about the benefits of rigid spray foam insulation as both an air barrier and an insulator, in addition to other building specific comments.     

My role on this project was largely one of research and coordination.  I coordinated the work of the interior designer, lighting designer, mechanical and electrical consultants, and our in-house team.  I also conducted and coordinated various research tasks and designed  specific tasks, such as the multiple fireplaces.

[insert LEED information]


No project is ever perfect and compromises are always made.  But by the end of the project we felt we had created a beautiful home that the homeowners were proud of while educating the East Hampton, NY, building community about green building issues. 

     

Ready Mix Service: Interior Retrofit and Addition [Unbuilt]

the studio of liquid triangle worked on a renovation and new addition for ready mix service, inc., a family-owned ready mix concrete company in hamel, illinois, before the business was sold and the project abandoned. the program called for an interior demolition and reconstruction as well as a 800 sf new addition to their office facilities.

Floor Plan

Basic Elevation and Section

Green Features
balancing durability and the nature of their business, rms has chosen stamped concrete flooring.  additionally, south facing glazing with overhangs and built-in planters provide ample daylighting to frequently used areas.

Rooftop Garden

this rooftop garden was amy's personal sanctuary and magical oasis in the city.  the patio is 36' long x 8' deep and paved with bricks.  the only requirements were that plants were in containers and that there be space for a grill.  the final product is both functional and beautiful.  multitudes of herbs, tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries feed the family.  decorative plant colors are kept consistent and pots grouped.  eating areas are screened from lounge areas by grouped evergreens.  and the bare concrete wall is screened with flowering vines.

vegetation will grow to screen the concrete wall

hanging baskets add vegetation to vertical walls

a small eating space

Suburban Front Yard Garden [class project]

Cradle to Cradle Home Competition Entry

I haven't uploaded a lot of portfolio work here because i have a hard time uploading and formatting portfolio work on blogger when I will need to hire someone to produce an official website/portfolio in a year or so. But in honor of my Biomimicry Certificate Program interview tomorrow, I thought I would post my entry for the cradle to cradle home competition of 2004 because I referenced it in my essays.

Amy's C2C Home Competition Entry.  Click to enlarge.

the contemporary cradle2cradle home is designed for deconstruction and adaptability. it incorporates a central fireplace for cooking and warmth, operable night insulation, external louvers, and passive ventilation. it supplies its own food and energy, treats its own waste, and is composed of materials that maintain their integrity through multiple lifecycles or are returned to the earth for recycling; the c2c home improves the site on which it sits.