Nageezi New Mexico near Chaco Canyon in northeast New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation
LOCALLY SOURCED MATERIALS / CULTURALLY SENSITIVE DESIGN / PASSIVE HEATING AND COOLING
A university-initiated design/build process led to the creation of the Nageezi House, a new home for an elderly Navajo couple. The house is located on an isolated, rural site on a windswept mesa in northeast New Mexico, near Chaco Canyon. The Nageezi House replaced the couple's original, conventional home, which had been built over a period of decades and which was dilapidated enough to make renovation impossible. The couple's adult children live on either side, in conventional, HUD-funded homes designed with little regard for the local environment.
The Nageezi House came about when the Stardust Design Center at Arizona State University (ASU) began looking for a project on which to apply its research-based, design/build process. The center wanted to create a replic-able model of a culturally appropriate home with a climatically suitable design in an area where most housing is substandard and inefficient. Navajo students in the ASU College of Design with an interest in working in their own community approached the Center. The Navajo Nation provided what the center needed. Indian reservations feature some of the most substandard housing in the United States, up to six times worse than in the general popula-tion.1 The average income in the Navajo Nation is $6,000 a year, making affordability a critical issue.
The Nageezi House was designed to respond to the local high-desert climate (elevation 6,947 feet), in which temperatures can vary 40 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit in one day. Passive heating and cooling provide a comfortable indoor environ-
ment and keep ongoing costs for utilities and maintenance low. The architecture reflects the traditional Navajo culture while addressing today's needs and modern technologies.
The design of the house revolves around two traditional Navajo structures not typically used for modern reservation housing. The first is the hooghan (or hogan), the traditional form of Navajo housing, which today is mainly used as a ceremonial structure by Navajo families. The hooghan, a one-room round structure comprised of log, stone, and other natural materials, places a fireplace with a chimney in the center of the main room. Although modernized
The chahash'oh, a shade structure, provides the traditional summer home of the Navajo. Here it serves as part of the passive cooling system, shading the home's south-facing windows.
© ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family.
The chahash'oh, a shade structure, provides the traditional summer home of the Navajo. Here it serves as part of the passive cooling system, shading the home's south-facing windows.
© ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family.
hooghans are beginning to be built in the Navajo Nation, in this case, the house's owners had been living in western-style housing for decades, and did not want to return to a hooghan-style house. In response, the design team "reinterpreted" the hooghan structure into a central courtyard and shade trellis, which, although outside, acts as the heart of the home. Hooghans traditionally utilize a clockwise movement, echoed here in the floor plan, with an entry to the east, and circulation around the central courtyard. The second traditional structure is a shade structure, a cha-hash'oh, the traditional summer home of the Navajo. Here it serves as part of the passive cooling system, shading the home's south-facing windows.
PROJECT DETAILS Project Size:
Construction Cost/Sq Ft: Total Construction Cost: Total Development Cost: Completion Date:
Project Team Developer:
Owner: Architect:
General Contractor: Structural Engineer: Project Director:
Energy/Solar Consultant:
ASU Design/Build Students:
One 1,450 sq ft building (original house had been built in the 1960s and added to over four decades) $90/sq ft $130,500 $140,000 August 2006
ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family
Mary and Kee Augustine ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family/ASU College of Design students
ASU Stardust Center Travis Design Associates, PC Daniel Glenn, Director of Design, ASU Stardust Center Ernesto Fonseca, Graduate Research Assistant, ASU Stardust Center Ernesto Fonseca, Christopher Billey, Peter Crispell, Jason Croxton, Matt Green, Adrian Holiday, Alisa Lertique, Tanya Yellowhair
Several entities within ASU and members of the Navajo Nation collaborated on the Nageezi House. The studio design team, led by the Stardust Center, included graduate and undergraduate students in ASU's College of Design. Construction involved dozens of local tribe members as well as ASU students. Four of the students from ASU's College of Design who participated in the design and/or construction of the project are Navajo. The design reflects their intimate understanding of the culture and their experience growing up in hooghans with their grandmothers. The students also presented design ideas to the local Navajo chapter house and to the Navajo couple in the Navajo language—as one member of the couple does not speak English. Finally, a professor and graduate student in ASU's energy performance and climate-responsive architecture program provided an energy analysis for the project.
This project was accepted as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Homes (LEED-H) pilot project, and has not yet been certified.
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