4′ High and Rising

With intentions to make a SD (Saturday Documentary) Jason and I ended up in Utah’s upcoming eco-community, Daybreak. While I am the first to say I was disappointed we failed to complete the documentary, our visit to Daybreak was rather refreshing. Up to know housing communities (suburbs) in the US have been, well how to we say, archaic, mundane, definitely non-feng shui, and has an eco footprint the size of Texas. With a rather astonishing leap forward (especially for Utah), Daybreak is a sustainable community based on the 10 principles of new urbanism for both the environment and its paying residents. The property is built around a man made lake fed from purified water from Utah Lake and used for storage for community wide snow and rain water collection, a collection system which captured 100% or rain fall up to a 100 year storm. This collected water is purified through natural processes in the ground, stored, then used for irrigation and recreation.

All buildings in the community are Energy Star rated (government body which certifies energy efficient electronics & building materials). Each house has super efficient window which help keep the house warm in the winter and cold in the summer. Traditional insulation has been replaced with ground newspaper, which, according to the info guy, is more efficient and fireproof than fiberglass insulation and is a smart way to use up old newspapers. In addition, the house have smaller footprint and yards; since the community provides an unprecedented number of parks, recreations areas (a lake), trails, and community centers, there is no need for excessive houses and yard size (see a map of Daybreak).

Anyway it is really cool for a suburb and I recommend checking it out.