Inspiration from an urban dandelion

This project draws design inspiration from the dandelion, an underappreciated flower that can thrive on available sunlight and water in the most challenging urban environments.

The Dreyfuss-Wells home on Ludlow Road near Shaker Square is a new, 1,754 square foot, single-family house that maximizes green design to fill a vacant lot in an existing neighborhood. It emphasizes that the first considerations of sustainable home design are modest size and a location that takes advantage of existing infrastructure and allows residents to enjoy a pedestrian- and transit-friendly lifestyle.

Green building features include:

• Construction in a neighborhood of historic homes near Shaker Square, with a contemporary interpretation of historic design styles to complement the neighborhood.
• Location near RTA Rapid transit stops and shopping at Shaker Square.
• Flexible and accessible design with open, ground-floor layout, entrance at grade, and first-floor sleeping and bath areas – allowing a portion of the first floor to be partitioned off as a guest suite or live-work area.
• Compact, “not-so-big” house designed to take advantage of free natural resources, using the sun and wind to heat, cool, and daylight the house. Windows are positioned to facilitate natural air flow.



• Energy efficiency features include high levels of insulation and sealing of the building envelope, solar thermal hot water system, radiant floor heating, passive solar orientation and massing, positioning of house on site so garage blocks cold north winds, wood stove for supplemental heat, efficient lighting, Energy Star appliances, and no air conditioning (insulated panels on south facing windows will prevent the house from heating up during the day, and natural ventilation will cool it at night).
• Use of advanced wood framing for the structure of the house, improving on traditional wood framing by dramatically reducing wood use and providing double the insulation value of conventional home construction.
• Designed to keep all stormwater on the site, with all rainwater hitting the roof diverted into a cistern, ponds, and rain gardens. Driveway is paved in strips with grass between rather than full width. This reduces urban flooding, avoids taxing the storm sewers, and provides free water for irrigation.
• Innovative uses of materials, such as concrete floors throughout the house that provide structure, building heating, and heat storage. The concrete is polished and used as the finished floor to avoid the need for carpet, tile, or wood. Reduced use of carpeting also improves indoor air quality.
• Materials selected with a preference for low embodied energy, local sourcing, and recycled content, including fly ash from power plants, recycled stone and brick, and salvaged sinks and doors to reduce the use of virgin resources.
• Other considerations – Low-VOC paints, mud room to prevent dirt from being tracked into house, and gardens with native and edible plants.

The house was designed by Kevin Dreyfuss-Wells, who is an architect with City Architecture. Ideas for the water-efficient landscaping came from Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, who is executive director of the Chagrin River Watershed Partners.

The couple is seeking LEED certification for the home. The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a national building rating system that is the standard for evaluating green construction. They expect their home to be the first in Ohio to be certified at the Residential LEED Gold level. Currently there are less than a dozen homes in the country that have achieved this rating.

For more drawings and floor plans, go here (PDF file, 3MB).