INNO-VILLAGE

Workers standing in house under construction

ATMAUTLUAK, ALASKA - Sometimes you find what you're most looking for in places where you'd least expect it. Like Atmautluak, a village in western Alaska of 275 mostly Yup'ik Eskimo almost 3,800 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.

In late 2010 HUD went looking for innovation, launching a $28 million Rural Innovations Fund grant competition seeking ways to "improve the quality of life for residents of distressed rural areas" through "catalytic" economic development and housing projects.

More than 300 organizations applied. Among the 51 winners was Atmautluak Traditional Council. The projects, said HUD Secretary Donovan would have an impact "for generations to come."

Bold words, indeed. But when it comes to innovation, Atmautluak's no Silicon Valley. There's no major university nearby. No ready pool of capital looking for a place to invest. No high-tech infrastructure to take Atmautluak to the next level.

But the village is proving fertile ground for sustainable, energy-efficient and, yes, innovative sub-Arctic communities, Starting with the soil - permafrost - a mixture of dirt, rocks and frozen water which lays beneath 85 percent of Alaska's land area. Permafrost, explains the Center, is an extremely wet, unstable, a "dynamic and difficult" soil. "The post-on-pad foundations on many existing homes," the Center reports, "sink into the soil as the active layer of permafrost melts and freezes."

That is not the only challenge. Stand in the middle of town and look around. "Treeless expanse" comes quickly to mind. Which is why residents depend almost exclusively on heating oil shipped by barges to stay warm. It's expensive stuff, sometimes topping $10 a gallon.

Aerial view

The same is true for building materials and equipment. The closest Home Depot is 500 miles east in Anchorage. Supplies come by air or barge which means that a house built for $150,000 some place else, costs $250,000 in Atmautluak. And given Alaska's long winters and short building season, you better make sure your order includes everything and anything you might need before the barge leaves Seattle.

In Alaska, just any old house won't do. For decades it's been customary to use Lower 48 designs, techniques and materials to build homes in Alaska. But what works - and lasts - in Atlanta or Altoona can't long withstand the wind and cold and wet of villages like Atmautluak.

In winning a $798,888 grant from HUD, in other words, the Atmautluak Traditional Council knew it faced challenges aplenty. But thanks to help from the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, it appears to be weathering them.

Over eight weeks this summer - faster than planned - two, 1,100 square-foot, 3-bedroom houses were built essentially by hand in Atmautluak. Top to bottom you'll find innovations everywhere you look.

Starting, no surprise, with the foundations. To address the project's "biggest challenge" the houses rest on a foundation of driven steel pilings which the homeowner can adjust with a wrench "in case thawing permafrost," The Alaska Dispatch explains, "throws the houses off-kilter."

It's made easier because the Research Center has developed an "integrated truss system that combines the floors, walls, and roof into a single piece." Architectural designer Aaron Cooke tells KYUK Radio that means "you can frame an entire house in one day."

Outside, the houses are metal-sided and roofed to avoid the kind of damage Alaskan winters can quickly do to stick-built homes. Inside, each house has mold-free insulation rated R-50 for the walls and R-60 for the floors cutting heating oil consumption to just 150 gallons a year.

Costs could be cut even further if residents use another feature - dehydrating toilets - that separate liquid from solid wastes which, once dried, can be used as fuel pellets in wood stoves. "I don't know how many billions of people in the world dry dung and burn it," Jack Hebert, executive director of the Cold Climate Housing Center tells The Dispatch. "In Tibet they use yak dung as their primary heating source. This is just human dung."

But maybe the most important innovation isn't found in the houses, but in the crew of local residents formed by the Pikat Construction Company that was formed by the Council to build the prototypes. "They're handling not just the tool belt aspect, but the funding, the grant management, and ordering of materials. They did an incredible job of project management. They choose their own crew of carpenters, and laborers that they think have the most potential to stay on this crew," designer Cooke tells KYUK Radio.

Better still, the crew's in it for the long haul. "From here we'll start from this village, then expand later on, help out other villages," crew member Edward Nicholai explains to The Dispatch. "We're just beginning." Precisely the kind of innovation, Secretary Donovan might note, that promises an impact "for generations to come."

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