It’s appropriate for the university, which was founded in 1905 as a rural farm school with an emphasis on agriculture, forestry and veterinary sciences, and is located in an area west of Sacramento known for tomato production.
Robert Good, a civil engineering graduate who serves as the team’s project manager, said, “We’re dedicating the design to the needs of farmworkers or agricultural workers. The engineering, the architecture, and the entire focus of our team are dedicated to achieving this goal while achieving an affordable price point.”
Many farm workers live in over-crowded conditions with limited plumbing, and heating and cooling facilities, often because they cannot afford anything better.
Termed Aggie Sol, straw bales provide insulation in the 14-inch, wood-framed walls of the modular home, and an outdoor decontamination room with a shower allows field workers to wash pesticides and other contaminants from their clothes and bodies before entering the home. Inside is a multipurpose great room combining the kitchen, living and dining rooms.
The limited number of windows keeps the hot sun out, while solar tubes bring in natural light, and a butterfly-shaped roof provides rainwater collection. An innovative heating and cooling system keeps utility bills down, and solar panels on the roof provide electricity.
As Gail Wadsworth, executive director of the California Institute for Rural Studies, wrote, “As long as the people who work in the fields where our food is produced live in unhealthy and unsafe conditions, our food system will never be sustainable.” ##
(Image credit: U. S. Department of Energy/flickr)
