Bravo on your undertaking. Have you seen LaVardera's "Porch House" stock plan? It would fit great on either size lot you are taling about. Or how about using shipping containers? Again, LaVardera is at the forefront of design in this area and I think they would make great beach houses.

Oops, Mark Meyer (EamesDadelus) has also been working on some shipping container house designs that would work great as beach houses (see the designSTUDIO link on the LM homepage).

Thanks. I do like Lvadera's stock plans and have viewed these with these lot sizes in mind. I have also looked at others as well. We want to develop this concept first to get a handle on what is necessary to meet the coastal codes and the best build materials/methods. I am a big fan of CMU (and some of the newer products like AAC) but we are remaining open to other methods as mentioned - SIPS and so on.

The shipping container idea has always intrigued me but I am also always curious, why in my other line of work, there is always a shortage of sea containers. Building houses with them sure would keep the round-the-world sailboat racers from breaking their keels on them!

And also I have entered some preliminary views in the "building Modern" forum at LiveModern.com

Are you considering ICF (insulated concrete forms?) Have you researched using poured concrete? I may be wrong, but I believe that alot of the structures at Rosemary beach and a few of the commercial ones are constructed of CMU's and poured concrete. Please keep us posted- I'm in Tennesse but very familiar with the Redneck Rivera.

I read your blog and did not really know much about AAC. We've been considering ICF to construct our house with, but thes AAC block looks great! WE also love the CMU but were having issues with is not being very energy efficient and we have both hot and cold weather in Tennessee. The AAC looks like it is solving this problem. Also that gyp board can be directly applied if we want to? Let us know more about your findings as your house develops.

Thanks for the comments. Most of what it comes down to for us is how can we achieve this modern home while meeting code and target pricing. "exposed" CMU still stands at our top favorite due the MCM asthetics. Most of the homes in Rosemary and elsewhere on the high end homes are stucco over CMU on the first floor and stick frame up top. There are a few excpetions that have been form poured. ACC block is really cool. I reviewed for the first time a home here in Bham under construction with ACC and it is a really neat product. There is a learning curve for the masons who've not used it but offers a lot of features. It has thin seams, it insulates, it can be routered, there are pockets for Probolts, and it can have a variety of final finishes. It is more expensive but is lighter and larger than CMU. We are just beginning an I will try to keep all posted on our progress. Interested in something new and modern in Laguna?

Please so keep us posted. We are still investigating our option also for what to built in Memphis. AAC just seems great.

Have you looked into the product called Rastra? Its sort of half way between CMU and ICFs. They make it out of concrete like CMU, but they add ground foam to the mix like ICFs. So it looks like a big cmu, but its lighter and has the internal channels to pour concrete like an ICF. I thought of it because you seemed to like the look of the exposed CMU.

google Rastra and I'm sure it will come up.

Greg,

There is no way you can leave Rastra exposed. It allows a LOT of water to pass through as it is incredibly porous, not to mention actually quite brittle. Rastra is commonly finished with exterior stucco, and either plaster or sheetrock on the inside. If you like the look of exposed CMU, then you need to use exposed CMU, but do know you'll get virtually NO insualtion value out of that wall assembly, and you'll HAVE to seal it on the exterior to keep water from wicking through (which means you'll have to re-seal every few years). I did recently see an advert for a water resistant CMU, I think out of Canada, but I imagine it'd be fairly expensive.

If the CMU aesthetic is only for the exterior, then you can use 4" CMU facing blocks laid up as a cladding like brick. You'll get the aesthetics of the CMU, plus the insualtion value and waterproofness of your structural wall system, but you will lose the exposed CMU to the interior as well as the savings of a single wall system.

I assumed you could use the same kind of coatings on Rastra as cmu, but that may not be so. In any case there are several different methods to insulated CMU, from perlite fill, to EPS inserts. See: http://www.cbisinc.com

You can also opt for high strength lightweight cmu that have larger core sizes and allow more insulation: http://www.buildex.com/smartwall/sw_faq.html

To fall in with such good info. We are really eager to hear back from engineering so that we can begin taking more direction with builders. We are surely going to keep on the CMU exposed track if at all possible and will use insulation of sorts if required/cost effective.

I grew up in a home my father designed and built with lots of exposed block - in and out. It was a ver Paul Rudolph type home and I have alway loved the look and feel. I hope for the same with some of these MODest home designs we are working on.

I am curious, if in fact there is a code which specifies R values, then how are the many that are using exposed block, especially for economies, getting by??

It will be your local building code that will specify the insulation values that you have to achieve. It is usually established by the State, but larger cities sometimes have adopted their own.

progress. The engineering firm is concluding their preliminary evaluation. This phase includes some value engineering which provides estimates on various build methods (CMU vs. others) while also considering the local and state codes. Once this is finished, hopefully this week, we will be able to better choose our direction in both the scheme and the construction method. The plans will be revised and we will then go to a couple of builders to see what they say.

This is a long process but my wife and I are hoping that time spent now will provide dividends in the future. Our goals is to develop this building "model" with our architects, MVMT_Studio, so that this process will be more streamline in the future for our additional build sites.

One of our greatest concerns right now, besides the obvious - construction costs - is the proper development of the site plans. I see so many good designed homes poorly using the best of a particular site. In our case, and especially with these smaller lots of 50x65, we really want to properly develop thebest use of the site with consideration to what we are build, what is required by the code (impervious area, septic, set backs, a.s.o....). Lisa and I really feel this is a big part of the marketability of these unique new homes for the area.

We are excited about all of this investigative work and trust it will soon begin to gel and will pay off in the future.

We are also on the hunt for more lots along the panhandle of FL and ultimately hope to be able to join forces with others to create a modern coastal development in this area.

More soon....

IMHO, there is a huge market opportunity for prefab industry throughout the entire Gulf Coast region ravaged by Ivan, Rita, and Katrina. Due to labor shortages, basic construction costs in the coastal LA-MS-AL-FL region start at about $220/sqft and quickly escalate from there. In Pensacola Beach, costs start at $250/sqft. Construction timeframes are 18-30 months. Can prefab come to the rescue?

Closer to home, my wife and I own two adjoining waterfront lots on Pensacola Beach, FL, in the pandhandle. Our island was hit really hard by Ivan and Dennis in 2004-05. The entire island is rebuilding. Pensacola Beach now has at least 60 lots cleared plus another 100+ homes which must be cleared and rebuilt. Prices are stable to dropping for most lots. Developers are beginning to pour in now. Several landowners, including me, have been seriously looking into using prefab modern architecture as a way to speed the construction process of our next beach home.

Like you, I love the concept of re-interpreting the little cinder block beach cottages that used to dominate our island in the 1950's. However, a complication we face on this barrier island is our local building height minimum, which require the bottom beams of the lowest living floor to be at least 14 ft above sea level for most waterfront properties.

Have you looked into raised home designs which incorporate the old cottage/modern asthetic? We have found prefabs that might work (design-wise), but none that would meet local code and handle our sea spray environment very well. Discussions with leading prefab architects have gone nowhere fast.

Any suggestions, tips, names and numbers?

Thanks

Vernon Niven

is something I have being keeping an eye on for my own venture. The ones I have seen most likely to fit are from HIVE, and also for your concern of elevation, the Porch House from MOCOLOCO. LaVedera's design for this home could probably be modified to meet the code requirements for Pcola Beach. I also could envision build an elevated slab and placing PreFab construction on top of it with the code required securing methods. This could open up a lot of cool options now that I think about it. And there is enough construction down there with all the condos to get this type of concrete elevated slab done quite easily. Use the below for parking or utility space and you could also enclose with "blow-out" panels. Maybe I have just given away the secret of waht is needed in all of Florida for hurricane code!!

As far as our project in Lauguna, we don't have a problem with the elevation. Most all our properties are 1.) not right on the beach but acroos the street from a dedicated beach and 2.) we are high and dry at 18' a.s.l. minimum in most all of the Laguna Beach area. We will stay with slab on grade and go up from there. In fact, I hear that there are many moving from west of us to our area in search of higher ground.

As for the MODest House project, we are trying to square away the excessive amount of space required for septic fields and field set-backs. The house is a great design but was not developed with the restrictive site plan (and small plat of 50x65) in mind and therefore we are going to have to begin looking into what we can do to optimize both the site requirements and the house design to get the right thing. We have enough to begin discussing with builder in the area and we hope their experience will shed some light and ideas on this for us as well and begin looking at the various construction methods/materials with costs. More to come.