This Week’s Find: A Custom, Compostable Capitol Hill Alley House

• December 4, 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

This Week's Find is a DC alley house customized to exceed net-zero energy standards.

Permits were recently approved for an alley dwelling in Hill East that will be constructed largely of compostable materials. Located on Adelaide Alley (map), so named after sculptor, activist, and Congressional Cemetery internee Adelaide Johnson, the two-story house goes beyond solar power to achieve its energy efficiency.

Designed by architecture firm bld.us, the exterior of the house will be comprised of tulip poplar bark cladding and a cedar roof, trussed with black locust structural timber, all sourced from the Piedmont Foothills in Virginia. The structure of the house will be established with Bamcore, a bamboo plywood hollow wall, and sheep's wool will provide insulation within the hollow walls. A layer of cork insulation beneath the bark cladding will also add to the efficiency of the structure.

The interior of the house will be arranged around a central atrium above the stairwell. The main level includes a screened-in porch, a bedroom suite and a half bath, and on the second level, there is another bedroom suite with a screened-in balcony and two additional bedrooms which share a bathroom. Solar panels will be installed on the roof. 

The house is anticipated to break ground in 2020.

Note: The name of the architecture firm has been clarified, as has the bamboo wall system.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/this-weeks-find-a-custom-compostable-capitol-hill-alley-house/16208