The Master Plan team is finishing up some minor details over the next few days. It is looking awesome! The rendering (by David Carrico) above is a sneak peak into the Crescent Green which will be the recreation hub for the property. In this rendering you can see the Fire Pit, Bocce Court, Fishing Pond, and Amphitheater. We will have a unveling of the Master Plan next week at Volunteer Fellowship! 
Monteagle Sunday School Assembly
August 24, 2010 By 1 Comment
Project Highlight
Monteagle Sunday School Assembly
Monteagle, TN
The Monteagle Sunday School Assembly is located about 40 miles northwest of Chattanooga and was established in 1882. The Assembly is one of 4 Chautauqua Assemblies to be in continuous operation since the zenith of the Cheautauqua Movement. Today about 17 Chautauqua Assemblies meet annually.
Becky and I recently visited Monteagle and were completely amazed. I have heard for a few years how incredible this place was from a architecture and planning standpoint, but never fully understood the community aspect. We only stayed one night, but after walking the grounds and visiting with a few locals we got a better understanding of the place and the community.
The Assembly sits on 96 acres and includes 165 summer cottages and bungalows, an auditorium, a chapel, a dining hall, a bell tower, a swimming pool, several tennis courts, a gatehouse, bed & breakfast, and a bandstand. Each summer families from all over come to live at the Assembly for a few weeks or months. The families can all eat together in the dining hall and the kids can play together at one of the many play areas on site. Some of the family activities include swimming, tennis, yoga, nature walks, baseball, basketball, theater, bike riding, and cookouts.
The Monteagle Sunday School Assembly is a perfect case study for what we want to do on the Habitat for Hope property. Not only is it a great place to study how hundreds of families interact with each other, but also it is a great example of design.
The two elements of design that stood out the most to me are the layout of buildings and the storm water management system. Buildings seem to be laid out in a very loose fashion even though the plan in most areas is a perfect grid. This element helps the community feel organic and free.
Next, the storm water management system is simple but it works. There is hardly any underground storm water conveyance and storage is kept to a minimum. This simplistic design is achieved by using pervious street and sidewalk surfacing. The streets have only narrow travel lanes that are paved and all other on street parking and driveways are either gravel or not paved. With so few paved areas on site, the site naturally manages its own storm water.
The Habitat for Hope Master Plan is dealing with many of the same issues that the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly has dealt with for over 100 years. If you are in the area, you must check this place out!
One Mom’s Thoughts…
June 10, 2010 By 1 Comment
On May 28th, the following editorial was printed in the Commercial Appeal in response to the press release about Sustainable Sites: “It’s Good to Be Green.”
And on Sunday, June 6th, the Appeal published the following Letter to the editor from long-time HFH mom Melissa Thomason:
Sustainable Sites Initiative
June 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
On May 25th the Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) announced the selection of Habitat for Hope’s Barn Raising Project as one of the first landscapes to participate in a new program testing the nation’s first rating system for green landscape design, construction and maintenance.
The Barn Raising Project will join more than 150 other projects from 34 states as well as from Canada, Iceland and Spain as part of an international pilot project program to evaluate the new SITES rating system for sustainable landscapes, with and without buildings. Sustainable landscapes can clean water, reduce pollution and restore habitats, while providing significant economic and social benefits to land owners and municipalities.
SITES, a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden, selected Habitat for Hope’s Barn Raising Project based on its extensive environmentally friendly elements. These sustainable elements are currently being designed by our team of world-renowned consultants including planners, architects, landscape architects, ecologist and engineers. Like the other pilot projects, the Habitat for Hope site will test the point system for achieving different levels of site sustainability on a 250-point scale, and the performance benchmarks associated with specific credits within the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009.
The Barn Raising Project joins the Smithsonian Institution’s African American History & Culture museum, a New Orleans’ project to absorb storm water on the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward flooded during Hurricane Katrina, and other pilot projects that include academic and corporate campuses, public parks with hundreds of acres, transportation corridors and private residences of less than one acre.
SITES will use feedback from this and the other selected projects during the pilot phase, which runs through June 2012, to revise the final rating system and reference guide by early 2013. The U.S. Green Building Council, a stakeholder in the Sustainable Sites Initiative, anticipates incorporating the guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of its LEED® Green Building Rating System™. Click here for more information.
