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We have started moving forward with our new home design for Jacksonville’s historic neighborhood of Springfield. We will continue posting not only images but we are going to attempt to start doing video interviews with some of the people involved. We plan on interviewing the clients as well and the builder, engineer, and various sub-contractors. Our overall goal for these posts is to help people not only understand the process of building a new home from design to completion, but also to understand the process of getting new home construction approved in a designated historic district.

Our clients are extremely excited and we have met all of their requirements and needs in the design process. We have designed this project with SIPS (Structural Insulated Panels) and many of the decisions were made to make this home as green and sustainable as possible. We will definitely have this home certified by the FGBC (Florida Green Building Coalition) and later we will decide if we should go for LEED for Homes certification. While designing this home, we also had to follow the guidelines for building new construction in a historic district. Springfield has it’s own guidelines, but like most historic districts in the U.S., they are based on The National Guidelines For Historic Preservation as set forth and manged my The Office of the Interior’s, National Parks Service. Here is a link to the Springfield Guidelines. If you decide that you are interested in reading through these guidelines, pay special attention to the New Construction section.

We have just started the design review process and our first step in the process is to apply for a COA (Certificate of Appropriateness). If you would like to follow along, here is a link that explains the process. Our goal is to have our application completed and turned into the Historic Preservation Staff by September 1st, 2010. We have completed a preliminary meeting with Staff to see if there are any items that stand out as possible deal breakers. There were a few minor items that we will tweak before submitting our application. In the mean time, we have contacted the SPAR Council to do the same review with them. Once “Staff” gets our application for COA, they will do a full written report determining if historic preservation guidelines for new construction are met. Each member of the Historic Commission as well as SPAR will get a copy to review before we present to the commission on September 22nd, 2010.

We welcome your comments. We know that it is rare to make everyone happy and we know that there are going to be a lot of “I love it” or “I hate it” comments. We hope that because this project includes written guidelines and suggestions, that some of you will take the time to read them and comment based on your interpretation of those guidelines. Thanks for reading and we sincerely hope that you enjoy this series. Once the home is complete, we will invite everyone out to tour the home and enjoy delicious beer provided by Intuition Ale Works (Thanks Ben).

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