The year was 1933, and President Franklin Roosevelt needed innovative solutions if the New Deal was to lift the nation out of the Great Depression. The Tennessee Valley Authority was one of those pioneering projects.
TVA’s first major undertaking was the construction of Norris Dam. Created to control flooding and provide cheap hydroelectric power to develop the particularly hard-hit economy of the rural Tennessee Valley, the Norris Dam Project also was the agency’s chance to prove itself.
The town of Norris, established as part of the Norris Dam Project, was an equally bold experiment. The town was constructed with environmental efficiency and sustainability principles in mind and was a model community, revolutionary for its time. The centerpiece of the community was the Norris House, an innovative, affordable home that featured new technologies, locally produced materials, and efficient vernacular design.
Today, 75 years later, a team consisting of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and environmental studies students and architecture professors Tricia Stuth and Robert French has designed and is constructing a prototype of the New Norris House, a sustainable home for the 21st century, one they hope will last well into the future.
Norris was originally an experimental town with homes constructed of wood, steel, and cinder block. The community was the creation of the latest science and technology in residential design, using novel elements like precast flooring and advancements in ventilation, insulation, plumbing, lighting, and electric and solar thermal heating.
Sustainability
The New Norris House will be the latest in sustainability and green design, incorporating today’s technologies to meet today’s needs. The design takes advantage of natural ventilation, winter sunlight, and summer shade. The house features a solar-powered water heater, a high-efficiency heat pump, a system for collecting and storing rainwater, and an on-site system for treating gray water.
“We realized that for this home to be a successful sustainable project, it needed to be socially sustainable, as well—adaptable to changing needs, affordable for a wider demographic, and desirable to live in,” says Samuel Mortimer, a fifth-year architecture student. “Anyone can design a sustainable house, but the real challenge is designing one that people want to live in and can afford to live in.”
In collaboration with planning students and Tim Ezzell, adjunct professor and researcher at UT Knoxville’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, the team entered its New Norris House design into the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Sustainable Design Expo, held in Washington, D.C., in April 2009, and walked away with top honors. The team is using its award, an EPA grant of $75,000, to construct the prototype in the town of Norris. It has been working closely with the nation’s leading producer of manufactured and modular homes, the Maryville-headquartered Clayton Homes, on the manufacture of the home’s modular shell.
“Though revolutionary by 1930s standards, the original Norris houses are increasingly dated and no longer represent the cutting edge of sustainable design,” says Stuth. “We’re building our prototype in Norris and preserving the spirit of the original homes because that spirit is still relevant today, especially in light of current environmental and energy constraints.”
