I'm smitten by the rainwater catchment and see-through fireplace.

Although these would not meet your retrofit criteria, I do have an idea for a product design which I could demo to you on an image of your house (using photoshop); back & sides please;-). BTW ~The Bank-On-Rain website and focus is for developing (I don’t like the term third world) countries, and the repurposed fish totes would not be acceptable to you or your neighbours..! FYI we are moving forward with two projects in Rwanda, including a girls school, which will collect & store rainwater for a dormitory, and be used for teaching the girls; anticipating they will bring the practical knowledge of rain collection & storage back to their villages. We need to create this same kind of viral dissemination in your neighborhood:-) Let’s continue this discussion.

Aliwan, thank you for a great comment, and for the addition of “Positioning” to my post. We have used Feng Shui concepts in our planning (and I know just enough to impress everyone!), and we consult with a Feng Shui Master or specialist when a client requires it. What is really interesting is so often Feng Shui dictates a design layout (positioning) I am already marketing to a client. Often I find the colors I select for a particular client & house are the ones the Feng Shui expert says are the most appropriate.

Designing for resale as such is not my choice usually; designing for added value is more my focus, though the latter can really increase the resale value. People can get so fixated on resale that they delete much of the enjoyment value they might have while they live in a house. Many times in the past when I used to help real estate agents by helping their clients do a quick fix prior to selling, they would say “if only I had done this before and had years of enjoyment from it, instead of fixing it up for someone else!” Sad but true. I would really enjoy collaborating with you again, either on a house or a start-up company!!

I would like to add a magic number seven(7) to the P list, P=“Positioning” . I consider this one of the most important marketing elements. In any project, whether a house, a new company or a product introduction, clear positioning before planning is crucial for success; clear global positioning can provide a realistic picture of who the target audience is and enable one to develop a thorough workable plan for deliverables. In the past 10 years many large multinational companies entered the Asia market, especially China and Japan without clear positioning and an understanding of the cultural differences in the market, causing failure and the loss of millions & millions of dollars.

From my personal experience, positioning a house in its location on the ground would seem to be equally or more important. Feng Shui is often the prime consideration for this, however with emphasis on energy savings there have to be a whole list of environmental considerations in how a house should be positioned. In colder areas you would want to be exposed to more sunlight, and in areas where you want to keep your house cool you would want to locate your house just the opposite.

You make reference to the “resale” word lurking in the background, so this makes me think that in a renovation the design and related implementation costs do require clear positioning based on the final price range and target audience (the next buyer) as well as all the planning you cover in your post. The challenge of finding a designer who can deliver design and investment value would be an extremely crucial part of any renovation or build from scratch plan. I have to admit that INCLINEDESIGN has done an outstanding job for me combining lifestyle enjoyment and investment success Thank you.

It is up to us to implement ideas like these and to invite our neighbors over to see how they, too, would realize value from them. We could wait and wait and wait forever for the politicians to plan rainwater catchments across the southwest (no doubt to compliment the raft of solar arrays), or we could look to ways to do it ourselves.

I really like this idea. I know we’re on a tangent, but I wonder if there isn’t more information on DIY catchment considerations on the BankOnRain site. If there isn’t, perhaps there could be? Not everyone wants a row of blue barrels and PVC cluttering their yard, so how might one who is (wait for it) inclined to design implement smaller scale systems which are neither expensive, nor ugly?

Make it look good. Make it easy. Make it valuable. Got viral?

Chris, I am really interested in continuing the dialog with you about “marketing minimalism,” or differently put, “marketing embracing minimalism,” either here or in another venue. I do this obviously with my residential design clients; I mentor Rainbank.info, a start up business I created for a fellow islander; I am involved with Bank-On-Rain at the lower end, designing grassroots water solutions for remote locations of the planet. It comes down to converting people to thinking “indoor plumbing” rather than ‘outhouse’ at the upper end, and thinking “a better life” in the third world scenario, where life has not changed much in hundreds, even thousands of years. Thanks for the dialog, I really appreciate it.

Karen, great to meet you on #brandchat today. You summarized in just about three lines, what it took me (I hate to admit it!) over 2000 words, to write. Excellent summary in every respect. Thanks for commenting on Inclined To Design, we are really pleased to have you as part of our community.

Darnoc, thanks for adding the “desire for success” ingredient into the Start-up scenario. When I see the flip side: “fear of failure” in anyone I mentor, I know that my chance of success of helping that particular entrepreneur is greatly reduced. And I might add; problems should be fun, defining them and then solving even more fun……add into that the “desire for success” and you are winning all the time. Thanks Alex, for your contribution.

Which speaks to your question of how we’ll eventually mainstream things such as rainwater catchment. Water management is going to become a hot-button issue, and I’m convinced we’ll see mandates in this area, beginning with areas most pressed to stretch their supplies. But it’s in everyone’s interest that we adopt better practice as early as possible.

People will adopt greener technologies as they see it benefits them. Highlighting projects like yours and developing long-term case studies of cost savings and lifestyle enhancement are positive steps in this direction. It’s the kind of stuff we’ll be doing on The Minimalist Century.

As you mention, outhouses were once the norm. The same with indoor baths — these weren’t commonly available until well after the turn of the 20th century. They became more popular as the health benefits of personal sanitation became known. It was an important social movement.

Initially, what we would consider modern plumbing was something of a status symbol. This led to broader public expectations and the political resolve to invest in infrastructure. Rain catchment, high-efficiency appliance and fixtures, and home energy generation will all happen in the same way: pilot projects, publicity, and public investment.

It’s how the future happens.

I love your rainwater collection efforts, Casudi. On the subject of rain, here’s something you might find novel to think about. We got the mother of all rain storms here in Phoenix yesterday. I mean, the light rain started around 3PM and it poured until about 10PM. My backyard was a lake and my dog hid in the garage all night.

This morning, on the news, they said we got 0.91″ of rain yesterday.
That brings the total – for the year – up to 0.98″.

I know it’s still just January, but I think that, aside from the storm yesterday, I’ve seen about 60 minutes of light rain in the last 12 months. And that was over the course of about five occasions!

We should be banking on rain here in Phoenix. We should also be storing up solar energy, but these are topics for another day…

Melissa, great suggestion about the serialized version ~ and I must admit that focusing on each section in depth would really be a much better format for this information. However, with the eclectic focus of Inclined To Design, I am not sure I would do it justice. This is perhaps more your bag, and why I really can identify with how you, a successful designer, has created your Prosper by Design identity. It’s interesting that recently I have mentioned the blog per project idea quite often, and found it has been extremely well received. It was Danny Brown who commented that what I am doing is actually creating a community around a project, with a project-focused blog. That’s something for a future post, ‘project mini-communities’.

Brian, I think most of our project pre-planning goals would be set during the collaboration with the client, creating the design philosophy for the residence. This discussion covers very generally how the client wants their home to look and feel; how it will affect their lifestyle, and what are their design preferences (what do they like most about our design?). The goals are further defined when the road map (how to get there) is worked out. Occupancy is a very definitive goal, and yet sometimes this gets lost, and project takes forever, or never gets done. Of course, this never happens when we’re involved

Your comment about infrastructure is perfect; I could not have said it better:”Foundation and infrastructure remain critical to any project, though. Even with the organic, general direction project, without a solid foundation to provide support for sound decision making, things will go astray. Likewise with infrastructure. These are the systems which support decisions made upon the foundation. Foundation gives a frame of reference, infrastructure provides a means to deliver the faculties required to act on those decisions consistently”. Brilliant!

Chris, I have read what you write about ‘minimal,’ and simplifying “life” with less stuff. You would laugh at how often I go through the same scenario, with clients who retain us to design simple, clean, minimal design; and then want to move in with a lifetime of accumulated stuff, which they don’t use, really don’t need, yet can’t get rid of, and compromises the design they paid so much to realize! BTW, the images in my post were from four different projects; however clients & friends have often said that our projects have a definite INCLINEDESIGN ‘fingerprint’ on them, whether they are Northwest Fusion, Contemporary, or Minimalist. And anyway, all the elements could very well have been from one residence, as they do all fit together.

Rainwater catchment and storage is one of my passions. The concept design demonstrates that a water storage tank could be an integral part of the design from the beginning, & not an afterthought, as is so often the case (engineering the structure above the tank was a challenge). The “out house” used to be a stand alone in the back yard, so how did it gain acceptance as an integral part of the interior infrastructure of a house? The same acceptance of rain catchment systems needs to happen, though not necessarily for inside the house