Long before the terms "green" and "sustainability" became diluted from overuse, there was the Energy House.
Built following the 1970s Arab oil embargo, the energy-efficient home tucked away in the back of the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus was designed to demonstrate that ecologically friendly concepts could be easily incorporated into homes across Hawaii.
Jim Pearson, a practicing architect who taught at the University of Hawaii, designed the Energy House with a host of features to conserve energy and reduce the overall impact of its occupants on the environment. Among those features were a "bent hip" roof with gable vents that allowed hot air to escape and the tradewinds to flow in, a rain gutter catchment system to provide drinking water, and a wind turbine and solar water heating system to reduce the need for utility-provided electricity.
The University of Hawaii Press published the "Hawaii Home Energy Book" by Pearson in 1978, which detailed many of the energy conservation ideas incorporated in the Energy House.
Many of the Energy House elements were replicated in other homes built over the next few years, including several constructed in neighboring Palolo Valley. Then the price of oil came back down, and the urgency to conserve energy waned.
Initially used as a residence, the Energy House was converted to classroom space and then used as a sort of storage shed. By the time it was handed over to a small group of professors from the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources in 2010, the structure was in serious disrepair due to lack of adequate maintenance.
Despite its crestfallen appearance, however, it was clear that Energy House still had relevance as a tool to demonstrate how to tread as lightly as possible on the environment, said Mary Martini, a psychologist and professor of family and consumer sciences at CTAHR who is leading an effort to restore the Energy House.
"Pearson really was way ahead of his time," Martini said. "He had a passive ventilation system, rainwater for drinking and gray water for irrigation, and radiant heat barriers between the ceiling and the roof. He even landscaped the yard with edible plants like this," Martini said, pointing to a breadfruit tree heavy with the football-size fruit.
The Energy House became the offices for Martini and six of her colleagues after their previous quarters were torn down to make room for a student leisure center on campus. Her first visit to the house was an eye-opener, Martini said. The floor sagged in places where the post-and-beam foundation had slipped off its footings, the rain gutters had trees growing in them, the roof leaked and rats had taken up residence. Fortunately, Pearson’s choice of redwood for most of the construction had kept the house termite-free.
Martini said her initial reaction was to go to the UH administration and say, "Thanks but no thanks." But James Estrella, a friend of Martini’s who works as a builder, convinced her a restoration could be done. The biggest challenge was coming up with the funding to make the repairs without the Energy House being designated as an official capital improvement project, Martini said.
The CTAHR dean at the time, Andrew Hashimoto, was able to scrape together $10,000 in funding. Associate Dean Linda Cox came up with another $5,000. And Gary Heusel, head of 4-H youth development at CTAHR, chipped in several thousand more dollars from his budget. In addition, Martini and her husband contributed a considerable amount of their own funds.
Estrella, a licensed carpenter, led the restoration effort, and four months later the Energy House was fit for human habitation again.
Martini says more needs to be done to restore the house to its original condition, but lack of funding remains an issue. The original solar water heating system fell apart and needs to be replaced. And Martini said she would eventually like to add solar photovoltaic panels for electricity generation when funding becomes available.
"We’ve gotten about half of what he (Pearson) had put back into place," Martini said. "We’ve continued on with his ideas."
The interior walls of the house are adorned with architectural sketches of the various features of the house, along with before-and-after pictures from the renovation. "We still get architecture students that come through," Martini said.
One of the most frequent observations of visitors to the house is how the air flow keeps the interior space cool, she said. "There’s no need for air conditioning," Martini said while giving a tour last week on a day when the outside temperature hit the 90-degree mark.
Martini, working with other CTAHR faculty and a group of students, has expanded the scope of the Energy House with an organic urban gardening component that includes hydroponic and aquaponic systems, a small-scale permaculture orchard, as well as traditional vegetable beds. The aquaponic system grows tilapia and catfish. Nearby, fertilizer is produced by a worm composting bin.
The projects serve a dual purpose: demonstrating such agricultural techniques are viable in an urban environment, and providing a setting for a UH-based nonprofit to provide counseling to help families under stress.
Bringing family members together to work on a project such as an urban garden has been shown to strengthen family dynamics, Martini said. Families that participate in the program, funded by the Family Education Training Center, are urged to take the lessons they’ve learned in urban gardening and put them into practice at home, she said. The Energy Center’s garden, and a nearby plot covering about a tenth of an acre, produce about five baskets of produce a week that the families take home.
A team of UH students works with Martini to teach the families the basics of urban gardening, hydroponics and aquaponics.
