Photograph by Ann ChouHometta architect Blair Satterfield, along with his design partner Marc Swackhamer, recently won an R+D award from ARCHITECT magazine. Below the fold is our feature article on his work, including a slideshow.

Blair Satterfield and Marc Swackhamer of HouMinn Practice (pronounced "human") describe themselves as "grazers," or samplers of a laundry list of modern media: "video games, movies, anime, Japanese culture, books, newspapers, music, podcasts, graphics, science, technology."

By "grazing," Satterfield also means playing with toys. And lucky for me, he shares his toys, like the Kidrobot 'Peyote,' above. Founded in 2002 by designer Paul Budnitz, the line of limited edition toys—and now apparel—exists through a collaboration with hotshot artists from a wide range of backgrounds.

HouMinn's similarly peculiar looking work—a revolutionary wall, a revolutionary house—albeit much larger and more usable, is made possible by experts in everything from welding to Mongolian felt making.

At a meeting with architect Blair Satterfield, he presents me with a three-inch vinyl action figure from the Kidrobot family—limited edition art toys fine-tuned by international artists ranging from graffiti writers to industrial designers to musicians. Collaboration among artists with diverse backgrounds makes Kidrobot possible, and highly successful.

Visiting Critic at Rice University and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Houston in Texas, Blair Satterfield is half of a design partnership called HouMinn (pronounced “human”) Practice, formerly slvDESIGN. The other half is Marc Swackhamer, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. For more than a decade, they have focused on alternative fabrication and building methods in housing. HouMinn, an acronym combining their hometowns of Houston and Minneapolis, may just be the new nylon of architecture.

HouMinn wants to help revolutionize low-cost housing and construction. The project Cloak Wall/Cloak House, for which they were recently awarded Architect Magazine’s Second Annual R+D Award, does no less than rethink the traditional wall system in a single-family house.

Draft House, HouMinn’s contribution to the Hometta home plans, is another product of their research. Draft House is simple, logical and aware of its surroundings. The upper private level collects drafts, while the public lower level, partially buried for insulation, opens onto a patio-garden that brings the outside inside. A field of dormers—windows that project vertically from the roof—provides daylight and ventilation. The upper level extends to collect breezes and provide shade for below. On the lower level, the partially buried kitchen and dining areas are insulated by earth. Plantings and patios extend living space outdoors and provide additional shade. Satterfield explains, “HouMinn originally designed Draft House as a cost-effective single-family home that was passively sustainable while focusing on and encouraging social living.

“Ultimately the house is organized to engage the site and take advantage of the earth and local weather patterns for both spatial organization and heating/cooling…For Hometta, Draft House is refined to a truly livable house that is modern in its approach yet still comfortable.”

Images Copyright ©2008 HouMinn Practice.

1 Section cut of Draft House  2 Front view  3 Back view  4 Cloak Wall details  5 Goldstein Gallery in Minneapolis  6 Paint exploration  7 Back view showing layered skins  8 Exterior  9 Interior.

Like the artists behind Kidrobot, expert knowledge from a wide range of fields is essential to HouMinn’s ‘open source’ design approach. Ideas exchanged within a project are fair game for other projects. Product designer Susanna Hohmann, aerospace engineer Rob Tickle, and fabricator and machinist Dave Hultman have made impacted the work through a series of projects, of which Cloak Wall/Cloak House is the latest. Instead of playing at being scientists, Satterfield and Swackhamer work with them.

The Hometta home of the future may include another HouMinn project: Cloak Wall is an innovative wall system that responds and adapts to climate conditions. Inspired by Nike athletic apparel, it is composed of three layers: a protective exterior, a middle layer, and an inner wallpaper-like layer. The protective outer layer is an exoskeleton of high-strength, low-weight metal ‘bricks’ stacked and held together by tightened wire. Behind the ‘bricks’ is a watertight ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) operable “skin” that controls moisture, views, and ventilation. The innermost “liner” is made of industrial felt in the form of zippered pockets that contain conduit, heat, and lighting.

From a divergent field of study, computer scientist Gary Meyer developed a computer program for the partners that allowed them to specifically tune the colors on the Cloak Wall. Similar to ‘flop’ color in automotive paint, which accentuates the contours of a car, the paint on Cloak Wall changes color with the viewing angle. Depending on the height of the sun, the house surface appears dark and absorbs heat, or light and reflects heat.

“The wall can change formally because a computer program changed the team’s relationship to paint and color. There is a ripple through the project that will find its way back into Draft House as it develops for Hometta. Even though Draft House will utilize more conventional construction techniques and materials, the ideas of the wall, and in this example, Gary’s work will be present.”

What’s next for Satterfield? At the University of Houston, he will form relationships with manufacturers and assist them in producing sustainable building products and components. With Swackhamer, he continues to push the ideas behind Cloak Wall and Drape Wall to expand the project in both scope and performance. They are hoping to produce a complete version of the Cloak House in the next year and to perfect more of the systems. They have a house renovation in the planning stages, a branding effort with John Clegg for a LA-based media company, and they are “developing Draft House for Hometta, of course."