Green Modern Kits News: Summer 2009

prefab house kit
Happy Summer From Green Modern Kits!
We hope you all have been enjoying your summer.
Here, hedges are filled with blackberries, the children are barefoot chasing chickens, dogs lounge hotly against cooler floors, and we are hard at work to offer you affordable, prefab house kits.

Here is our latest news and updates for Summer 2009.


We were happy to be mentioned in Design *Sponge!

From their site:
"Design*Sponge is a daily website dedicated to home and product design run by Brooklyn-based writer, Grace Bonney. Launched in August of 2004, Design*Sponge was declared a “Martha Stewart Living for the Millennials” (NY Times, 2008) and features store and product reviews, city, product, and gift guides, diy projects, before & after furniture and home makeovers, home tours, recipes, videos and podcasts, and trend forecasting."
Virginia casa ti

If you haven't been following the blog of the Virginia off grid modern casa ti at http://www.greenmodernkits.com/casa-ti.htm, we are framing the interior, then progress to systems and landscape architecture / a plan for land management. We have been approaching this house project, and the land, with a careful "pay as you go" attitude, which has therefore taken longer to build, as it is not yet our true residence.

After the prefab house is done, we continue crop tree release and increasing function-yet-preservation of the land, so that in a few short years we can be there sustainably full time.

We are very fortunate to have the landscape carefully considered by Topos, Llc.

Heather Barder of Topos Land Planning Design Richmond
Heather Barber, ASLA, is the creator and principal designer of Topos, Llc. Her experience has been cultivated through crossing the boundaries of interdisciplinary design, delving into planning, civil engineering and architecture. Her passion for design is grounded in the landscape, contributing to such projects as residential developments, corporate campus planning, commercial and institutional masterplanning, parks and recreation site layout, residential site design, grading and drainage.

Heather has been recognized for her skills with such awards as 2002 Sustainable Sites Award and others. An active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Heather is committed to the growth and understanding of the profession.

Aaaand... there will be a prefab open house in September!

More on this soon, but if you would like to tour our prefab off grid zero energy house kit, there is a wonderful bike tour going on in the area on the weekend of September 26th. Bike Heartland is a fun bike tour that goes all weekend long through a gorgeous, historic area of Virginia. I am working with some local farms to have other activities like tours of natural, community supported farms, a winery that will be open for you to enjoy, and more, so pack yer tent and come on down! For more on accommodations, see here (camping at the Heartland Bike Tour), here (Charlotte Courthouse), here (Appomattox), and here (Farmville); and also be sure to visit Miss Emily's, where Necia and her husband will show you great English hospitality. (And boy does she know how to cook.)

More Prefab House Kits!
I can't mention exactly where yet but I can tell you we will be starting to speak about two casa ti's and an R1 Residential soon. After the screech of the recession, it looks like people are starting to again be given loans by banks...
Stay tuned.

As new prefab house kits start the permitting process I will be adding their blogs with the hope that each family's journey will contribute to the shared house kit knowledge as they make their own systems, foundation and cladding choices.

...And that's our Summer Update!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at copeland@greenmodernkits.com.

Sincerely yours,
Copeland Casati

copeland casati
president
www.GreenModernKits.com
6902 park ave / rva 23226