Thursday, November 25, 2010

Green Home Made From Concrete Converted to Live Classroom

60 Bragg Hill, is Chester County, Pennsylvania’s newest green home currently under construction. The barn-inspired design is being built with Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs), a highly efficient, sustainable system that uses site-poured concrete sandwiched between firm insulated foam. The onsite seminar was entitled “Demystifying Concrete Design and Construction” and enabled the trade professionals to interact with industry experts on ICF techniques and best practices.
Rich Jones, general manager of Foam Form Technologies, provider of the ICF wall forms and Lite-Deck insulated stay-in-place concrete deck forms for 60 Bragg Hill, sponsored the event for trade professionals. Jones spoke to the assembled group and offered them a unique first person exposure to concrete form construction. “For over 40 years, insulated form construction concrete has been available for residential as an alternative to traditional stick construction. Due to the advances in ICF design and manufacturing, we can build smarter, stronger, green homes with concrete than ever before,” said Jones.
Matthew Moger, the architect of 60 Bragg Hill discussed how the ICF system is comprised of concrete and steel, the basic building blocks of the modern architectural movement. “For me,” Mr. Moger added, “ICF construction offers a unique opportunity to design houses that are liberated from residential conventions, i.e. entire corners can be removed and infilled with non-structural glass curtain walls. Floors can be set at any height without breaking the contiguous super insulated shell.” In summary, ICFs allows the designer to create more compelling architecture.