Architect Michelle Kaufmann was getting all of the free-publicity in the world.  Media outlets from HGTV, TIME Magazine, and newspapers, including the  Denver Post, the late Rocky Mountain News and now – InsideRealEstateNews.com - have featured her.

But she was forced to dissolve her company last May, as she described in this blog entry.

“The thing is, we had plenty of business,” Kaufmann told me last week, at the site of Casa Chiara at the Marycrest Convent campus in northwest Denver, where workers were installing the energy efficient, factory-built homes she designed for Susan Powers, principal of Denver-based Urban Ventures. The community is expected to be ready  for occupancy in October.

Kaufmann said the trouble was that in this tough environment, lenders wanted more “predictability,” as far as having a steady number of homes being built in factories. She said lenders did not want to see “holes” in the manufacturing centers.

Factories close

For the same reason, a number of the factories closed, because they could not get financing to keep them going, because of lulls during the construction cycle.

Still, she remains a strong advocate of building homes in factories, as opposed to building them on site. After all, when you order a new car, GM or Toyota doesn’t arrive at your driveway and start putting it together.  It’s not only faster, more economical, and creates less waste by building homes in factories and installing them on sites, but it eliminates the danger of weather damaging building materials.

Although shutting down her company was sad, Kaufmann said it also has a bright side.

Re-invents herself

“Like so many other people, it has forced me to re-invent myself,” she told me. “I can now make decisions very quickly and be more nimble.”

She wasn’t kidding when she has lots of work. When she left Denver last week, she was heading back to her home in California. And then she will be off to a project she is designing in the Bahamas.

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She thinks there is an ongoing sea change among consumers, who will demand more from builders.

“They’re just not going to put with with crap construction,” she said.

One important component, she said, is to convince Realtors to get on board with pushing sustainability.

“Realtors are really important, because people listen to them,” Kaufmann told me. “Instead of just saying, “Here is a three-bedroom, three-bath house with 1,800 or 2,100 square feet, they also need to be pointing out that energy saving features.” Those features are not only good for the environment, as well as good for the pocketbook, she notes.

Green homes better built

And she thinks that green-built homes are better-built homes.

“I think when builders take that step of paying more attention to the type of materials they use, and the type of systems they install, it leads to more care on everything from caulking to the quality of the construction,” she said.
“Once you start going down that road, it just makes sense that you end up with a better-constructed house.”

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Michelle Kaufmann, Susan Powers and John Hickenlooper survey the first phase of Casa Chiara.

Casa Chiara, the new green development at the Marycrest Convent in northwest Denver, is just starting to take shape.

But the California-based architect, Michelle Kaufmann, and the developer, Susan Powers, of Urban Ventures, have been looking for the perfect project to do together for years.

“Sue and I have been friends for years,” Kaufmann said  at the site along 52nd Avenue, just west of Federal Boulevard. ”She had read about me somewhere, and she was visiting a friend in California, whose house I designed ,” she recalled. “Her friend was telling her that, and Sue said:  “Wait a minute. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her. You have to introduce us.”

They met.

BFFs

“We hit it off right away,” Kaufmann said.”We looked at a few other places in Denver, before Sue selected this one and did this deal. The other properties were of a similar scale. I couldn’t be happier. This has been a great first phase.”

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Architect Michelle Kaufmann and Mayor Hickenlooper chat about the green development she designed at the Marycrest Convent campus in northwest Denver.

Mayor John Hickenlooper took a quick trip today to visit the green and modular construction underway at the Marycrest Convent Campus being developed by Urban Ventures, headed by Susan Powers.

“Isn’t cool,” Hickenlooper said, as he walked across a field to meet with Michelle Kaufmann, the nationally-known architect who designed the units. It is the biggest single project of her career. She wants to do more of these, because that will have a bigger impact on the environment and society, than the previous 41, single infill buildings she has designed to date, she told me.

After Hickenlooper chatted with Kaufmann, I asked him to elaborate.

“Denver wants to be the kind of place that brings a lot of innovative ideas,” Hickenlooper said. “What could be more innovative that to build a totally green, pre-fab, multiple- unit community on the site of a convent? This is going to be a great development. I think it brings to Denver just the kind of development that we want to be known for.”

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Architect Michelle Kaufmann, standing in front of Casa Chiara in northwest Denver, thinks homes should come with the equivalent of "nutritional labels" listing sustainability features.

Nationally known architect Michelle Kaufmann,  Sister Sue Artone-Fricke and I watched the giant crane lift the super-energy efficient, modular homes placed on the Marycrest Convent campus in northwest Denver, from a dirt-perch high above the construction site.

“It’s thrilling,” said California-based Kaufmann, who is best known for her energy efficient and cost- effective Glidehouse, as she looked at the biggest project she has yet designed.

“Every time I see these cranes lift these homes, I just love it,” Kaufmann told me. “It seems to defy logic, yet it is so logical. And yet, at the same time, it is so logical.”

She is proud that the homes she designed are built in a factory, a much more cost effective and energy efficient than traditional stick construction. She notes that people don’t typically assemble their cars on their driveway. Building homes on site makes about as much sense, she said.

Sister Artone-Fricke, who watched her bedroom delivered to the site two weeks ago, and today saw it put in place, was equally as thrilled. She visits the construction site a lot. Don’t tell anyone, but she and some nuns even squeeze through a hole in the fence at night to wander around.

“I don’t come every day, because I do not want to nick pick,” she said. “But I love it. When they first got here, it was just surreal.”

Kaufmann is designing the homes for Susan Powers, head of Urban Ventures.  Urban Ventures is developing about 17 acres of the site, which ultimately will include about 270 units – including 110 apartments. The 160 for-sale homes will range in size from 960 square feet to 1,600 square feet and be priced from about $250,000 to $500,000.

“They basically will be NetZero homes, ” meaning they will produce at least as much energy as they consume. They could easily qualify for LEED-ratings, but they aren’t spending the money to get the designation, she said.

The solar photovoltaic panels will produce so much power that it is the equivalent of vehicle driving 70,735 fewer miles each year and the equivalent of planting 2,487 trees.

They will use CFL  and LED light bulbs, Energy Star appliances, double-pane, low-e glass windows, 90 percent-plus energy efficient furnaces, tankless water heaters, Xeriscape landscaping, high-performance insulation, state-of-the-art air filtration systems, and no VOC paints, just to name a few things. Kaufmann said she would like to do even more. For example, she would like to re-use gray water, but “you’ve got these quirky laws that make it difficult.” That is something they will be lobbying for in future phases, she said.

They also are re-using doors from the razed Queen of Peace building that made way for the first phase on the campus as desks, bricks from the razed buildings for landscaping, and incorporating iron railings from the Marycrest Convent.

But being green is tricky, Kaufmann told me.

“Bamboo floors have become sort of the poster-child for the green movement,” Kaufmann said. “It’s become so popular that some people are buying it as cheap as possible from workers who are toiling under horrible conditions. We’re very careful about who are suppliers are from. And some builders are slapping toxic glue underneath the floors, which is not good.”

She also is aware that bamboo shipped from Asia, also contributes to greenhouse gases because it has to be transported such a long distance. For that reason, they are always on the outlook for nearby sources  of wood that has been salvaged and can be incorporated into developments.

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