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The Dry-In House is an affordable housing concept developed by FieldOffice and a 4th year architecture studio at Clemson University. Presented at the 2006 Venice Bienalle and receiving a 2007 ID Magazine Annual Design Aware, we came to New Orleans in 2007 to build a new home for Reverend Earl Williams of Hollygrove.
The Dry-In House was based on ideas of mass-production and user-participation, allowing the house to be put together with limited skilled labor and a shortened construction schedule, lowering construction costs by tapping into social networks that could assist in the build-out. It was designed with rebuilding after a disaster in mind. The construction process was designed to deliver a home at around $70,000, which is comparable to the life-cycle cost of a FEMA trailer, with the overall layout, roofline, and finish-work determined with great involvement by Earl.
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| Dry-In House's core: constructed in a warehouse before being placed on-site |
1. foundation built: For our mock-up at Clemson University, a diamond pier system was used. 100 lb. diamond-shaped concrete forms have metal pipes sledgehammered through holes in them, pointing several directions in the ground. These mimic the roots of a tree, but did not comply with soil conditions in New Orleans - 30' piles were driven and a concrete pier foundation built.
2. prefabricated service core: Containing bathroom, kitchen, and mechanical/electrical/plumbing, the core is built while foundation poured + sills placed. The core is the first habitable element onsite, placed immediately after completion of the foundation, allowing the resident to have utilities on-site early in construction process. Habitation comes earlier in the build process than traditional construction, though New Orleans' Certificate of Occupancy requirements do not allow for this, making the core most relevant for a post-disaster scenario where priorities lie in immediate shelter over code compliance.
3. prefabricated CNC-cut trusses: Manufactured offsite to homeowner's roofline design and engineer's specs, the trusses are to be raised around the core and braced in a single day.
4. Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs) - SIP's wrap the trusses, providing high R-value insulation and structural stability.
5. utilities extended from core throughout home, windows and doors installed, space usable
6. owner finishes out home as time and money allow
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| trusses with SIPs installed, before windows + drywall install |
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| Earl next to polycarbonate walls, which diffuse natural light while still providing privacy |
While this project succeeded in providing Earl and his new wife, Sombra, with a home that is energy efficient, affordable, and that they enjoy inhabiting, this experience shed light on the downsides of implementing a "prototype" project begun afar. Timetables and design based on mass-production instead of single-home production, reliance on donated services, inexperience, and idealistic objectives took their toll, as Melissa Vandiver, Vinnie Vumbaco, and myself (all having just finished undergrad school) spent 2 years working to make sure that Earl's home was completed. While invaluable knowledge was gained for us through working through the entire the process, this shed considerable light on the shortcomings of prototypical design as a way to provide a single home, and the assistance of Patrick Rhodes, Emilie Taylor, Doug Harmon, Burke Rafter (all through Tulane CityBuild), Trinity Christian Community, Topher Mira, and James F Barker (Clemson University President) was critical to finishing Earl's house.
Since the Dry-In House's construction, CNC-cutting machines have become fairly accessible and even can be built at home. Having this means of production available locally and designing the building's envelope accordingly would greatly reduce costs with the Dry-In House, as the CNC-cut trusses and SIPs had to be shipped from regional manufacturers.
ddbNOLA blog. See the Dry-In House on the Open Architecture Network