Published: November 06, 2009 10:11 pm      

Tour to feature recycled homes

The Living Paradigm organization of Houston will offer tours of their salvaged material home, the Brigid’s Paradigm home, and other salvaged material homes built by the Phoenix Commotion in Huntsville today.

The tours, which will start at 1410 13th Street, will begin at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

“The tours will probably last 45 minutes to an hour,” said Living Paradigm founder Amanda Tullos. “We will start with a brief overview of our organization and the importance of this program. Then, everyone can go their separate ways.”

“[Phoenix Commotion’s] Tree house is the starting point [for the tour] … We are also going to be looking at the Bone house and briefly stop by some other houses in the area.”

The Living Paradigm is a non-profit organization committed to building affordable housing out of salvaged and reclaimed materials.

“There are a lot of good reasons why this program works and why people are so interested in it and I think it is summarized by talking about sustainability. There is a concept called the triple bottom line … balancing three things to be sustainable,” Tullos said.

“One is environmental concerns, one is financial concerns and one is social concerns. Our program represents a good balance of all these things because we are diverting these items from the landfill and we are training people to build their own homes.”

Tullos and the Living Paradigm were inspired by the environmentally-friendly efforts of Huntsville resident Dan Phillips and his low-income housing initiative, Phoenix Commotion.

The Phoenix Commotion is an effort committed to reducing the landfill waste-stream by diverting useable building materials into the construction of low-income housing.

So far, the Phoenix Commotion has built 14 sustainable homes in Huntsville.

Today, Living Paradigm works in collaboration with Phillips’ Phoenix Commotion.

Following Phillip’s example of sustainable living, the Living Paradigm also hopes to turn trash into treasure for low-income families by building their own sustainable housing in Houston.

“We anticipate starting our first house in Houston near the downtown area in March of next year,” Tullos said.

There is no cost of admission to the tours, but donations are greatly appreciated, said Tullos.

“We are gaining momentum and need help in many ways,” Tullos said. “Moving forward we are in need of a trailer, insurance and other funding.”

For more information on the Living Paradigm, please visit www.livingparadigm.org or contact the organization at livingparadigm@gmail.com. For more information on the Phoenix Commotion, please visit www.phoenixcommotion.com.