Why do we feature the WIRED LivingHome on Club of Pioneers?Well, it's constructed in a sustainable way but also of some sort a mobile concept - meaning that since it is prefabricated it can be built in a couple of days almost anywhere. When you first arrive at the WIRED LivingHome in Brentwood, California, the house's exterior seems interesting from the word GO. But once you ascend the stairs to the first floor, you get the feeling that even though the structure itself is quite simple and clear cut, the interior must also reveal some playful highlights - and it certainly does on the technical site making it...yep, the first green AND sexy Prefab you certainly want to live in. Only some gadgets: the home features a 4-kilowatt SunPower® solar power system, including high efficiency, all-black SunPower solar panels that generate up to 50 percent more power than conventional panels. Forced hot air radiant heating and cooling systems makes you feel all comfy no matter what time of the year.But green conscience doesn't stop here. The design also stands up to environmental standards:
recycled glass bathroom countertops, heath ceramic tiles, low-maintenance high-design ecological kitchen cabinetry...The rumour goes that the design has been influenced by the seventies - but check out for yourself.
Here are some exclusive pictures from the WIRED LivingHome Interior.
All pictures taken by Club of Pioneers user Edward Santizo.

Raging fires in California might have delayed the official opening of the WIRED LivingHome for two weeks but they couldn’t hinder the hundreds of people who came to party at the house for the official housewarming – among them architect Ray Kappe, his wife Shelly and…Club of Pioneers. We took the chance to meet up with some of our pioneers and other fellow bloggers from the area (e.g. the Green LA girl) who also showed up at the event.

We got the chance to get the first peek at the house located in the exclusive Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles before the party crowd arrived. With only some press people and the main brains behind the WIRED LivingHome around (meaning among others Steve Glenn, CEO from LivingHomes, Jay Lauf from WIRED Magazine and of course Ray Kappe) one could get a good feel for the importance of this sustainable house in the context of the environmental debate on urban sprawl and housing – and a really warm and welcoming feeling thanks to the beautiful interior design which also was chosen for its sustainable standards.
We even got to see, feel AND touch the famous countertop made from 100-percent postconsumer recycled paper!
Vinod Koshla, Ray Kappe, Steve Glenn (from the left)At the event Vinod Koshla, leading clean-tech venture capitalist and LivingHomes investor, made an appearance to emphasize the importance of hands-on and available solutions. Being an influential personality in Silicon Valley (he is co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founded Koshla Ventures in 2004 in order to assist entrepreneurs determined to build companies with lasting significance) he whole heartedly put his weight behind supporting the WIRED LivingHome concept. The amazing results could be seen at Monday night's party. You can see more pictures of the WIRED LivingHome here at our Flickr page.
Ray Kappe and EdwardAll pictures were taken by Edward Santizo, a freelance photographer located in Los Angeles and also member of Club of Pioneers. Being a pioneer from the first hour (he signed up in December 2007 on our launch date), he took the chance to meet parts of the team and party with the rest of the WIRED LivingHome crowd – here with Ray Kappe!The Club of Pioneers team says thank you for the great job!

Our guest blogger Jeremy Jacquot ( From www.treehugger.com) attended the Hammer Conversations with Ray Kappe and Shigeru Ban on Oct 18 on behalf of Club of Pioneers. Here is his report on the event.
As somewhat of a Ray Kappe Luddite – having looked up some of his recent projects only a few days beforehand – I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived at the HAMMER Museum to sit in on his conversation with Shigeru Ban. It didn't take long for me to realize just how little I knew about the man – and the incredible portfolio of work he had managed to amass over the past few decades. While I had already been familiar with the ongoing projects he was doing with Steve Glenn of LivingHomes and the guiding role he had played in founding SCI-Arc, it was only during the event that I learned that he gave Shigeru Ban his first big break, that he had worked on several state-level commissions and that he was widely considered to be the chief patriarch of Los Angeles architecture. Even if I had not figured this out, another sign of Kappe's crossover appeal lay, of course, in the sheer volume and diversity of the audience that had assembled to hear him speak. Encompassing a wide range of age groups and professional backgrounds – including students, designers, architects and business executives (just to name a few) – the audience seemed to share more in common with the typical legions of rabid groupies found at sold-out concerts than the staid, respectful crowd I had expected to see. Indeed, were it not for my reserved ticket, I doubt I could've gotten in – the line easily stretching past the length of the building. Whispered mentions of “seeing my first Kappe” flitted all across the room as we patiently waited for the conversation to begin.Following a few brief introductions by Frances Anderton, the moderator for the event and host of KCRW's DnA program, we dived right into the meat of the conversation – Kappe's relationship with Ban, their influences and their views on the emerging prefab/sustainable architecture movement. Having given Ban his first opportunity to take a crack at architecture by accepting him into SCI-Arc, Kappe was visibly emotional as he described their long history and the pride he felt at seeing how far he had come. For his part, Ban credited Kappe for introducing him to the concept of prefab and for instilling in him an appreciation for the type of elegant, simple and minimal architecture he has now become associated with. What struck me was Ban's negative perception of the concept of “green” architecture. He almost seemed to go out of his way to bat down any suggestion that his work constituted what's been widely dubbed “sustainable architecture”. That's not to say he's against building green in principle; anyone even remotely familiar with some of the structures he's built – notably the shelters he helped build in Sri Lanka after the tsunami and those he built following Hurricane Katrina – will know that he only uses fully recyclable, cradle-to-cradle material and that he places a particular emphasis on minimalism. To him, architecture – by definition – should embrace the tenets of sustainability and environmental friendliness, so attempting to typecast or label them as such seemed ridiculous.

Shigeru BanKappe took a more nuanced approach, crediting the growing environmental consciousness for having pushed “green” and sustainability to the fore of design and architecture – a welcome development to a man who'd tried (often unsuccessfully) to incorporate these elements into his buildings in the past – while also knocking the media's fixation with all things “eco-friendly”. He concluded the talk by describing his long-held vision of bringing affordable, sustainable architecture to the masses – criticizing the political climate for having made it almost impossible to achieve – stating that he hoped to continue focusing on prefab housing as a way to eventually bring it to fruition. As the entire audience rose to give him a much-deserved standing ovation – following a few heartfelt tributes from architects (and former students) Michael Rotundi and Thom Mayne – Kappe could only sit and grin, visibly stunned by the level of adulatory praise. Reflecting on the significance of his 80th birthday, Kappe distilled the essence of his life's work into a simple: “It's been fun”.
Jeremy JacquotJeremy recently decided to dump a career in dentistry after realizing that he missed his undergraduate coursework, which focused primarily on marine biology and natural conservation, too much. Having made the full conversion to a green way of living, he's now decided to reorient his studies towards environmental science and will be attending the University of Southern California to obtain a Ph.D. in Marine Environmental Biology, with an emphasis on environmental policy and sustainable management. On his downtime, he enjoys reading about everything business, politics, science and technology and sometimes moonlights as a pundit/op-ed writer.