Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Earth House: Architect Noel Cross and wife, Amy, are building a caramel-colored 3,000-square-foot, two-story home out of earth. The house is attracting the attention of curious passers-by.
Earth construction makes its first SJ appearance in Willow Glen area
Owner and architect Noel Cross hoping to appeal to others
By Kate Carter
Willow Glen is full of unique homes, but few as rare as a new one under construction on Hicks Avenue.
Except, according to its builder and architect, it's not really that rare at all. But it's the first of its kind in San Jose.
It's a house made out of earth.
The caramel-colored, 18-inch-thick walls of the 3,000-square-foot, two-story home are up and already attracting the attention of curious passersby, says the building owner and architect Noel Cross.
"As an architect, it's the approach, 'Build it, and they will come,' " says Noel, owner of Noel F. Cross Architect, which specializes in environmental design and construction. "I decided, 'I've got to do this.' There's something about it that you experience. I couldn't convey it in words."
Earth building has been around for millennia, say Cross and his construction subcontractor, David Easton of Rammed Earth Works, Inc. But it lost its popularity in the developed world in the early 20th century in favor of wood and brick construction, they say, and in so doing, humans lost out on the environmental, health and quality-of-life benefits that come with earth construction.
"[Earth buildings] create a unique quality, a calming. There's a real subtle quality of sound," Easton says. "That's what thermal mass can do for you. Our clients really fall in love with [their homes.]"
Easton characterizes himself as a "revivalist" of earth construction, which actually exists all over the world. By using earth for walls, homes are better insulated from heat and cold, maintain better humidity and create better temperature distribution, he says. Earth buildings also last far longer than those with wood construction, he says, contrary to what many may think.
"I'm an engineer and was able to make people feel confident in earth again," Easton says. "It takes a new perception on the word 'earth'--you treat it as an engineering material."
Because they require less energy to heat and cool, are not built with harmful toxic substances and last for hundreds or thousands of years, earth buildings are the apex of environmental construction, Easton and Cross say.
"This material will outlast a wood-frame house five times," Cross says of his new walls. "That's the true model of sustainability. You don't have to keep using the earth's resources to live."
Cross says he first became interested in environmental architecture as an architecture student at the California Polytechnic State University in the mid-1980s. But after graduation, he discovered that most professional architects weren't employing any of the techniques he'd learned.
Cross went on to start his own company doing traditional architectural design, but began trying to add in sustainable features to make his buildings "greener."
Then, about five years ago, he says, he attended a seminar by Easton about his Napa-based rammed earth construction and was able to tour Easton's own earth home. Cross fell in love, not only with the earth-friendly approach but also with the feeling he got in the earth home environment, and it was something that he couldn't describe in words to encourage his clients to do something similar.
"I thought, 'I gotta just do it myself,' " Cross says.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Earth Works: Architect Noel Cross, with wife Amy, recently began building a new home using rammed earth technology to be more environmentally conscious.
So, about 3 1/2 years ago, he and his wife, Amy, who is also well-schooled in environmental planning and who grows most of the family's food in the backyard garden, moved from a small Willow Glen home to the large lot on Hicks Avenue, with the idea of living in the existing house while building a larger one behind it. Cross began designing the home soon after moving in, working around the lot design, trees and the family's living style.
He and Amy also began experimenting with rammed earth construction on their own by building, over the course of two summers, a lot-surrounding fence to replace an existing chainlink one. They learned to build plywood frames in the shape of the walls and reinforce them with rebar, then fill them with a special mixture of earth and pound it down with a pneumatic compactor. The force causes a chemical reaction that creates bonding and makes the walls hard, he says.
The earth is a mix of gravel, sand and clay coming from a quarry in Sonoma, Cross says.
"It's actually a waste product from the quarry," he says. "So it's really cheap." A ton of the earth costs $4, he says, and he used 360 tons to create the house walls.
Cross says he sent the house plans to the city June 24 and received his permits and began construction in November. He says that because the city's building department had never before approved the construction of an earth building, he had to work extra-hard to convince them it would work.
"I was the guinea pig. It was definitely a challenge, because there's a lot of hand-holding we have to do to make them feel comfortable," he says. "We had to do more than other people have to do. They made us pretty much prove everything. It's a good thing I was my own architect."
He adds that the home's walls are about twice as strong as required.
It took Easton's team about 2 1/2 months to complete the house walls, using an intensive procedure that requires at least five years of experience to master, Cross says. Easton admits the energy and labor costs of earth building are high, but says that it is more environmentally beneficial because it lasts so much longer than the average custom home.
Cross says he is spending about 15 to 20 percent more to build his home than the average custom homebuilder would, but that it will pay for itself in about a dozen years on the energy savings alone, and that time lag is only decreasing as limited resources become more scarce and thus more expensive.
Cross even uses photovoltaics to generate his own electricity and has been adding energy to PG&E for about a year. His new home will still be connected to the grid, he says, but it will only use gas in the kitchen, and all floor and water heating will be done by a ground-source heat pump, with four 250-foot-deep wells, in the backyard.
"Radiant heating in general is much healthier and more appropriate for human beings," he says. "You can have it at a lower temperature and still feel warm. You're not blowing around any air. Basically, each room has its own thermostat."
Construction on the first phase of the home, which will include most of the living areas, three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths, should be complete by the end of the year, Cross says, with construction on a second phase of a garage, extra bedroom and bathroom beginning after that. He and Amy are spending their time searching out attractive, pre-used items to use on the home's finishings, and have already found a marble bathroom sink, a stone fireplace facing and some tiles.
"We're trying to find the salvaged things," Cross says. "We're going to take our time to shop for that. We're probably the kings of recycling."
He and Amy say they are pleased with the look and feel of the house, which is designed in the Provence style and is very open to the backyard while naturally shielding them from traffic noise along Hicks Avenue. And once the walls are up, that's it, Cross says.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
