Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Lifestyle

A House in the Sierra Nevadas Built to Withstand Both Fire and Ice

An interview with CAMPout House architect Greg Faulkner on precision, resilience, and wood.

A Faulkner house.
Heatmap Illustration/Faulkner Architects, Getty Images

Faulkner Architects have practiced from Truckee, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range for 35 years. The firm’s particular approach to design takes inspiration from founder Greg Faulkner’s former work in aircraft design. “Precision is one of the things we’re about,” Faulkner told me. “I was part of the wing group at Cessna. I drew — by hand — the wings and all the parts that make up a wing for the Citation III, the first intercontinental business jet with a low swept wing.” (A low swept wing improves aerodynamic performance.)

Translated to architecture, Faulkner thinks about precision in the assembly of pieces and parts to accommodate for expansion and contraction. He also takes direction from the natural shape and form of the building’s environment to determine materials. “Our work is not just an idea dreamt up separate from the place,” he said.

CAMPout, a Faulkner-designed home located in the Sierra Nevada mountains just 25 miles from where the 2021 Caldor Fire burned through more than 220,000 acres of woodland and destroyed roughly 1,000 structures, perfectly embodies that approach. I spoke with Greg about the story behind the house, designing for fire risk, the virtues of pine. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Where is CAMPout house located?

Near Lake Tahoe, at the base of a mountain that used to be a volcano and is now carved with ski runs. The house is at a high elevation with a lot of snow and looks south toward that mountain. The house is surrounded by an alpine forest and is in between the mountain and a former prehistoric lake with an all-desert bottom. A spring-fed creek runs through the property.

CAMPout.Courtesy Faulkner Architects

Tell me about your architectural approach to the house.

For CAMPout, we used unfinished sugar pine trees throughout the interior. You get the scent of sugar pine, and the wood is soft to touch. We used it on the interior walls and ceiling.

We also used a fire-resistant concrete base to create a continuous surface materiality — you have boulders outside, concrete inside and out, and start to get a feeling of inside out, outside in. We wanted to create a seamless experience, using a singular wood species throughout the whole house — it’s not about a different experience everywhere. It’s expedient, and we use what is at hand.

Your Habitable score shows extreme fire risk. Were you aware of this when you built the home? What decisions did you have to make?

We did plan for fire. The exterior of the house is corten steel, [otherwise known as weathering steel, which resists corrosion,] and concrete. There are only these two exterior materials, and both are fire-resistant. Also, we designed an inner courtyard and glazed the exterior windows. The roof has a Class A rating, [meaning that it can withstand intense flames,] and is a combination of heavy plate steel over a layer of stone to protect from flying embers.

In 2021, the Caldor fire came within 25 miles [of the CAMPout property] and destroyed 1,000 structures nearby. In forest fire terms, that’s pretty close. Glazing on the interior glass in the courtyard made that somewhat of a safe room. While the courtyard provided some protection, it still would’ve been very smoky and best to evacuate.

We didn’t have to do too much to create escape routes because there are two ways out of the community where the house is built, in case one is blocked.

Habitable doesn’t have a risk factor for snow and Truckee had record snowfalls last year. How did CAMPout perform in the snow?

Snow is heavy on a roof. CAMPout house is designed for 175 or 200 pounds per square foot — that’s one person standing side by side over the whole roof. But last year we got double that weight in snow; the house had 10 feet of snow stacked on top. We had safety factors built in — we designed the roof to hold the snow in Swiss tradition because of the insulation it provides. Still, that’s a lot of snow.

The water content of snow varies so much. The roof could take a lot of light dry snow, but if it’s full of rain, it might not. Last year the engineer recommended after 5 feet or so to start knocking off the snow. In case another big storm comes, it would be difficult to remove.

CAMPout.Courtesy Faulkner Architects

Is there anything you would've done differently?

We went back and forth on heating the inner courtyard surface for snow melting. We chose not to do it for sustainability reasons because it takes a lot of energy to heat the outdoors. But with these kind of storms, we might reconsider. Removing snow from the courtyard is difficult even with drains. They have to snow-blow it out, and with 10 feet of snow on the roof, it’s challenging.

What are your three top takeaways for people living in fire and extreme snow zones?

1. You have to make the decision that you are not going to have wood on the exterior of the structure. It’s for more than just fire — building a wooden house in a forest with such extreme weather conditions, it’s a recipe for maintenance. It’s like putting a piece of furniture in the woods and expecting it to survive! You have to look for other materials that can’t burn and don’t need refinishing.

2. Simple forms are best. Complex roof forms and shapes based on aesthetics are difficult to waterproof. Think of 10 feet of snow moving around on the roof. As temperatures changes, snow melts and freezes again. If you have a lot of activity going on in the roof form, it will be difficult. A simple form will keep snow on the roof as insulation.

3. Angled or sloped roofs are not the answer either. What tends to happen is there is a porch at the bottom that ends up holding the snow, or the snow slides onto walkways and driveways and where cars and people and neighbors pass. If you build close to another house, you can’t have the snow slide off and hit the neighbor’s property. Best to keep snow on the roof.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Electric Vehicles

AM Briefing: Sean Duffy Wastes No Time

On the new Transportation secretary, California’s fires, and energy storage

Sean Duffy Targets Biden’s Fuel Economy Standards
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Storm Herminia moved over Europe, bringing severe flooding to Spain and France • The air quality is low in Mumbai, where a panel is considering banning vehicles powered by gas or diesel • It’s chilly but sunny in Washington, D.C., where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face the Senate Finance Committee in his confirmation hearings to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Judge halts Trump’s funding pause

A lot happened in Washington yesterday. Chaos erupted after the Office of Management and Budget dropped a two-page memo ordering a pause on federal grant programs that “advance[s] Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.” According to Heatmap’s Jael Holzman, the freeze targets programs including vast swathes of the federal government most relevant to the energy sector, from major Energy Department cleantech research offices and labs to all implementations of energy tax credits, including those in the Inflation Reduction Act. It also includes essentially all work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a Commerce Department subagency that produces climate science and weather forecasting. The order was set to take effect at 5 p.m. but a federal judge temporarily halted enforcement of it until a hearing on February 3.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Offshore wind question marks.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Among the many, many, many actions President Donald Trump took in his first week to curtail clean energy and climate policy in the U.S., he issued an order freezing all wind farm approvals. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next. On the one hand, we know the president hates wind energy — as he reiterated during his first post-inauguration interview on Fox News last week: “We don’t want windmills in this country.” But the posture is also at odds with Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency and vision for “energy dominance.” Plus, it’s Trump. There’s a non-zero chance he’ll change his mind.

But let’s assume the wind leasing and permitting freeze stays in place for the next four years. Trump also plans to “conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending” existing leases, which could upheave projects already under construction or built. How do we make sense of what this all means for climate change?

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Podcast

The Trump Policy That Would Be Really Bad for Oil Companies

Jesse and Heatmap deputy editor Jillian Goodman talk Canadian tariffs with Rory Johnston.

Canadian oil production.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

On February 1 — that is, three days from now — President Donald Trump has promised to apply a tariff of 25% to all U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico, crude oil very much not excepted. Canada has been the largest source of American crude imports for more than 20 years. More than that, the U.S. oil industry has come to depend on Canada’s thick, sulfurous oil to blend with America’s light, sweet domestic product to suit its highly specialized refineries. If that heavy, gunky stuff suddenly becomes a lot more expensive, so will U.S. oil refining.

Rory Johnston is an oil markets analyst in Toronto. He writes the Commodity Context newsletter, a data-driven look at oil markets and commodity flows. He’s also a lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. He previously led commodities market research at Scotiabank. (And he’s Canadian.)

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow