The EcoSteel team was recently featured in a California publication.
In The News
Anthrazit House – Dwell Magazine Prefab Issue
Anthrazit House featured in the latest issue of Dwell Magazine! In collaboration with architect Hector Magnus, EcoSteel provides an amazing home with strength and beauty through it’s all metal fire resistant structure. Make sure to pick up the December Dwell issue at your local book store.
Full Dwell Article Linked Here – https://www.dwell.com/article/from-the-ashes-e4a7a479
From The Ashes
– a few words from the article – Copyright Dwell
“After a wildfire, a prefab home in California puts resilience first.”
When the Tea Fire swept through parts of Santa Barbara and Montecito in the fall of 2008, more then 200 properties were destroyed. Some home owners cut their losses and moved on, but others vowed to rebuild. Combining a prefab steel super-structure with concrete walls and insulated metal panels, Anthrazit House in Santa Barbara was designed by architects Pamela and Hector Magnus and built in collaboration with EcoSteel.
“We were looking for ways to rebuild faster and to help a building take the brunt of the fire.” says Hector
So began a three-way collaboration between the owner, Architect Magnus, and Ecosteel to design build a 3,300 SF residence – dubbed Anthrazit House for it’s charcoal hue that could withstand future conflagrations while remaining energy efficient. The key lies in the materials: A foundation and walls made of concrete, a prefab recycled-steel frame, a standing seam insulated metal roof, and fire resistant insulated metal panels that envelope the exterior steel.
“The construction method is a little different then traditional wood frame” explains Hector. We spent more time in design because we wanted to see on paper what the final details would look like. The roof, for instance, is a super-thin plane, and we wanted to make sure it terminated correctly on the leading edge. And the exterior skin had to align properly with the windows.”
“That’s the beauty of prefab, you can minimize field work”
Connecting the steel to the foundation at just four anchor points paved the way for sweeping mountain and canyon views. “Steel allows us to do that” Hector says. Expansive windows on the second floor face a park, while a steel-and-glass stairway keeps things open. The house is laid out on three levels, with the main entrance leading to the top-floor kitchen which features concrete floors, quartz counters, a refrigerator and wall oven by Electrolux, and a stainless steel apron-front sink from Kraus. The ground-floor studio is built into the hillside, which helps keep indoor temperatures moderate.
Interested in custom building your own home with EcoSteel? Contact Us Here
More images of the Anthrazit Project below:
Ecosteel project featured on NBC 6, Miami
In celebration of Earth Day, Professor David Rifkind‘s sustainable house, “Tin Box” was featured on NBC 6 Miami. Features of this eco-friendly home include building with 100% recycled steel and a recycled water system.
DWELL MAGAZINE FEATURE
The 1,700-square-foot home’s unusual design resists excess with rugged minimalism.
There were many incarnations of this lot before its owner had settled on a harmonizing design. Set in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, the site was allegedly a dumping ground during the construction of a nearby freeway—a concern brought to the owner by his neighbors—and the foundation of a house that was demolished after incurring damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. But the owner knew a thing or two about rebirth: he’s a Zen Buddhist monk and he envisioned a fresh start. He partnered with principal Tom Marble of Marbletecture to create a sustainable property, and he initially thought a circular design embodied that goal. But after 72 drafts, the duo settled on an unusual frame: hexagons. “In this way, users enjoy a complexity of light and space, and a variety of ways to access the exterior no matter where they happen to be,” Marble says. The home is a duplex, with one bedroom upstairs and a studio downstairs, and both realms are made from a handful of materials. It’s a welcome shift for the storied lot, and a more peaceful one at that.
University Of Utah, College Of Architecture + Planning:
EcoSteel Thermal Assessment by University Of Utah, College Of Architecture + Planning
View Original Article
“Ecosteel delivers on prefabricated metal building packages applied to residential and commercial construction projects. The series of wall and roof panels utilized by Ecosteel are metal sandwich filled with non CFC polyisocyanurate foam. The panels are manufactured in a uniform pressure laminating process that bonds metal facings to pre-cured insulating rigid foam cores. The process uses structural urethane adhesives applied under heat and pressure to form an integral bond between steel and foam.
The goal of this study is to assess insulation panel’s thermal behavior and connections performance based on computer-aided simulation tools and high resolution IR thermal camera images of two study projects (Park City, UT and Hampton, NY) once in summer and once in winter. This will demonstrate the success and failures of the thermal envelope and allow Ecosteel to further optimize the energy performance of their buildings to meet Title 24, LEED, Green Globes and other green building standards.”
Credits:
Project Investigator: Ryan E. Smith, Director ITAC
Researcher: Massih Hamedani
Funder: EcoSteel
