Interview with Jennifer Siegal.

Last week I got the opportunity to interview home designer Jennifer Siegal for the Awearness Blog. It was long enough that I had to divide it up into two parts over there, so I figured I’d post the complete interview here.

Jennifer Siegal is the founder and principal of Los Angeles-based architecture firm Office of Mobile Design, which is “dedicated to the design and construction of responsible, sustainable and precision built structures.” The firm uses prefabrication and modular construction as well as sustainable and environmentally sound building products in its sleek, modernist homes and buildings.

Siegal is an expert on portable architecture, editing two books on the subject: Mobile: The Art of Portable Architecture and the new More Mobile: Portable Architecture Today.

Siegal’s work in environmentally conscious architecture brought her to the attention of USA Networks, who just honored her with one the first Character Approved Awards as a leading innovator shaping American culture.

Were you always interested in green technologies?

Yes, I was always interested in the concepts, and I think a lot of it stems from my childhood. My parents were ex-New Yorkers and moved us out to New Hampshire, to the country, where my brothers and I were raised. And it was definitely a moment in history when people were looking for alternative lifestyles for their families. My father was a painter, so we ended up moving to the end of a dirt road, for whatever reason, and got involved in farming and nature.

Sort of the “back to the land movement“?

Back to the land, right, out of the city and into the land. It was around the ’70s and the energy crisis was in full swing, so I distinctly remember the long gas lines and not really being able to go anywhere and a lot of people talking about alternative energies at that moment, and particular solar power. There were a lot of people coming to my area, that region, to investigate alternative energy sources.

Are you seeing those trends resurfacing now that we’re back in an energy crisis of a sort?

Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? The sort of cycle of excess and time. Yeah, it is, and I think it’s being done in a more rational way this time, so while I think change at that magnitude or scale only exists in North America when we’re forced to look at alternatives, I think it’s been a growing grass-roots movement for quite some time. It’s definitely a topic that comes up in my office for at least 10 years going. Every client that walks in asks those same questions: How can I live lighter on the land? What are my alternatives?

And a lot of those tax incentives and credits that were there in the ’70s that were then removed I think are being put back in place, so you’re going to see not just mandatory changes, but people making a choice instinctively.

You’re very interested in prefab homes and construction. What are the advantages of that style of construction?

Well, there are three advantages, which are the issues that play out in every building. There’s always this issue of design or style, the issue of cost, and the issue of time. And what’s exciting about factory-built or prefabricated systems is that all three of those become possible — better design, less time, less money. And that’s really the holy trinity in the design world.

How many of this sort of homes have you done, and are they all in Southern California?

Yes, all of the built examples have been done in Southern California. We’re starting to travel north right now, but we’re still along the California coast. Which is interesting, I think that California tends to be at the forefront of a lot of new ideas and technologies, and not only are there dreamers out here, but there’s also doers, so you can pay for or get the funding for what you desire. We’ve completed about a dozen custom single family homes and one middle school using the same technology, and we’ve got a bunch of new projects on the boards.

Have you seen a lot of interest in your work from outside of California?

Absolutely. I get calls from everywhere — from all over the world, from all over the country. It’s not just an isolated idea — housing is a necessity, right? Everyone needs some form of shelter. And there haven’t been that many advances made in the world of housing for a long time, so I think when there’s some new viable idea out there, everyone’s ears prick up. And because, obviously, of the internet and blogs, news travels fast, and so if there’s a possibility of change, I think people want it, and they just don’t know how to go about getting it.

Obviously not everyone has the opportunity to work with you or purchase one of your custom homes. Are there ways to apply your philosophy and the technologies you use to a conventionally constructed home?

To some degree, absolutely. There are items you can resource or replace in your Georgian, ranch, whatever — you know, simple ideas like tankless water heaters. Those are a great, affordable, environmentally sound way of heating water. I would hope that within our stimulus package we’re going to get some incentives for people to be working more with photovoltaics, solar panels.

Another area that I think is starting to filter down has to do with recycling of water — grey water systems to take the water from your shower or washing machine and using that in your garden, for example. It’s not a new technology, it’s very old, and yet it’s one of those technologies that we’ve forgotten how to use. I think it’s making a comeback, which is great. Thirty percent of most materials on a construction site ends up in the dumpster, so one of the issues that I try to fight or work around is, how do you take those materials and work them back into a project. An adaptive reuse methodology in construction is something that’s really interesting to me.

What do you think is the most important thing or change people can do now to help the environment, in terms of homes and technology like this?

You know, this is one that was just sort of drilled into my head when I was a kid: just turn out the light. When you not in a room, turn out the light. Unplug appliances you’re not using, because even if it’s plugged into the wall, it’s consuming electricity. Close the door, don’t heat every room in your house — put on a sweater. Use more passive heating and cooling systems, don’t turn on the air conditioning. I guess they’re really simple things, but maybe not to everyone.

And the great thing about most of those is it also saves money, it’s not just better for the environment.

Yeah, I think there has to be an incentive out there. If every house had an electrical meter on its facade, so if you were walking down the street you could see how much electricity each house was using at every moment of the day, and it became more of an honor or competition… There’s an idea for a reality TV show! Energy competition in the neighborhood!

One thing we’re trying to start here in Venice, where I live, is a community garden, so working with friends in their backyards to share and plant vegetables. It’s fun exercise and a good way to just hang out with your buddies. But we’ve got a different kind of city than New York.

Coming at it from a slightly different angle, what should every homeowner be aware of about their home and the way it impacts the environment?

The age of your home, when it was a built, is important — a lot of [older] homes don’t have adequate insulation in the walls or around windows. Most of the heat in your home is lost through the windows — drafts or small cracks and openings. So those are simple things you can do to secure your home and make it more energy efficient.

My philosophy is, let’s do more with less. Let’s downgrade, not be these enormous consumers. We don’t need three televisions in one house. We don’t need all these gadgets and gizmos. Houses can actually become smaller, more compact — multi-family dwellings, multi-generational. Ideas that I think have lost favor, but can be possibly reinvented for a new generation of homeowner or -dweller, maybe someone who wouldn’t necessarily be able afford the American dream. Maybe the American dream is shifting, and maybe it should be — maybe we should be thinking about the idea of a single family residence in a very different way. Maybe it should be a kind of hybrid of use, and zoning issues. Houston is a very interesting city because they have unusual zoning, so you don’t just have a residential neighborhood, you can have eight different things going on on your block.

Obviously transportation is a huge issue, so [people are] living closer to where you work and those kinds of smart urbanist strategies. But also densifying is important as well, and using more spaces. There’s this whole group here of guerilla urbanists who go into empty lots and sort of take them over and claim them for garden spaces or artists — squatters for nature. I think that’s a great concept.