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BIO

Brief BIO
Posted: January 22, 2008

Michael A. Berk is a tenured (full) professor and senior faculty member in the School of Architecture @ Mississippi State University. He was recently awarded the F.L. Crane Endowed Professorship by the provost for his continued excellence in research, teaching, and outreach. He is a registered architect (California & Florida) with an extensive practice as a design partner and project architect prior to his return to the academy. Professor Berk teaches and researches in the areas of: digital media + information design; factory-built housing, and ‘sustainable’ architecture and planning. He is considered by many to be a leading expert in the area of ecological design - - and is often invited nationally to lecture on this topic. (Most recently he was invited to make a presentation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and upcoming invites include: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo - April 2008 Hearst Lecture Series, and Auburn's Rural Studio - Feb 2008).

His current research (with USDA, HUD, and FEMA funding) involves the design and manufacture of an ecologically-minded, low-cost GreenMobile® home unit for the Southeast and the Delta regions. In December 2006, the GreenMobile® was awarded $5.8 million dollars by FEMA in the nationally juried Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHHP) for disaster-relief housing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast; the project was ranked number one by national jurors from the AIA, FEMA, HUD, and other nationally recognized experts. He is working closely with the Mississippi Governor’s Office of Renewal and Recovery and MEMA to execute this award. This project was also awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2007 US EPA + AIA sponsored Life Cycle Building Challenge Competition in the Professional: Unbuilt category.

Berk has received numerous awards for his teaching and research at MSU. In 2006 he received both of the school’s faculty awards for his teaching and research. The first and most prestigious honor was the Allen & Hoshall Award; a $500 annual award to the faculty member “. . . who has demonstrated excellence in teaching” was made by the 5th year graduating class. The second honor, the Faculty Book Award, came from the student architectural honor society, Tau Sigma Delta, for excellence in teaching and research. This was the second time he has received the Book Award, and the third time receiving the Allen & Hoshall award. In addition, he has been twice nominated by colleagues and students for the prestigious MSU Grisham Master Teacher Award; he also received the MSU College of Architecture Researcher of the Year award in 2002. In January 2008, Berk is being inducted into the MSU Shackouls Honor College Faculty (one of the highest honors awarded to MSU faculty). At the national level, Berk’s Passive Systems course on ecological design received special recognition in the American Institute of Architects Eco-literacy in Education Program in 2006.

Professor Berk had been a member of the Association for Computer Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA) Board of Directors for 10 years 1994-2004). Berk is also responsible for pioneering and influencing the early movement of integrating 'student- owned' laptop computers into the design studio environment. His writings and presentations (Notepad in Every Backpack,1991) helped to advance a nationwide adoption of 'student- owned laptop computers’ within many architecture programs in the mid to late 90's and was noted in the Carnegie Mellon Boyer Report on Architectural Education. Back in the 90’s, this hybridized (digital-analog) pedagogy began to open the way for design faculty (and students) to incorporate the machine into their design process without abandoning or replacing traditional media.

EXCERPT link: Notepad in Every Backpack
http://www.caad.msstate.edu/sarc/69/Digital-Technology/

LINK: Breaking New Ground (More INFO about the 'innovative' computerization program - 1994)
http://msuinfo.ur.msstate.edu/alumnus/fall.94/28break.htm

AIArchitect (American Institute of Architects e-Journal)

GreenMobile® featured in Volume 15 of AIArchitect (29 FEB + 06 JUN 2008):
Posted: June 14, 2008

Berk's GreenMobile® research project is featured in the American Institute of Architects e-journal Volume 15 2008 (AIArchitect) in the PRACTICE and SUSTAINABILITY sections.



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ARTICLE 1 Volume 15: Issue February 20 2008
PRACTICE
"Mississippi State Brings Sustainability Down Home: Architecture professor champions green mobile homes"

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

See link below to see article and images:
http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek08/0229/0229p_mobile.cfm

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ARTICLE 2 Volume 15: Issue June 06 2008
SUSTAINABILITY
"Factory-Built Housing: The Green Alternative"

by Michael J. Crosbie, PhD, AIA
Contributing Editor

See link below to see article and images:
http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek08/0606/0606rc_face.cfm

GreenMobile® wins the 2007 EPA LifeCycle Bldg. Challenge

GreenMobile ® Wins EPA + AIA sponsored Life Cycle Building Challenge Competition
Posted: April 02, 2008

U.S. EPA Announces Winners of First in the Nation Green Building Design Competition
For Immediate Release: Sept. 20, 2007
Contact: Wendy Chavez, 415/947-4248, chavez.wendy@epa.gov

Winner thumbnails[logo] US EPA

Innovative Green Building Competition

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is recognizing cutting-edge green building ideas to reduce the environmental and energy impacts of buildings. U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator Susan Bodine, American Institute of Architects President RK Stewart, and Building Materials Reuse Association President Brad Guy recognized award winners of the Lifecycle Building Challenge competition in a video awards ceremony on September 20, 2007, at the West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco, California . . . .

Building: Professional - Unbuilt
Winner: GreenMobile® Factory-built
Housing Units for SE USA Adaptable mobile home unit for disaster relief and permanent use
Michael A. Berk

Please see Life Cycle Building Challenge site for competition entry:
http://www.lifecyclebuilding.org/2007/winner-greenmobile.php

Please see EPA site for full details, story, and video about the competition:
http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste/solid/construction/lifecyclebuilding/index.html


Residential Architect -Aug 2007

GreenMobile® published in Residential Architect magazine (Aug 2007 print issue)
Posted: June 18, 2008

project: upwardly mobile

Source: residential architect Magazine
Publication date: August 1, 2007 (august)
Pages 56-57 {article + images)

By Nigel F. Maynard

After working in private practice for nine years, architect Michael A. Berk shifted gears in 1990 to become a professor and researcher. His new pursuit ultimately led him to explore affordable and ecologically based factory-built housing in the rural Southeast and Delta regions, where the dynamics of poverty differ from those seen in urban centers . . . . (click link below for rest of story)

See related link for complete article and photo gallery of print material in magazine (pp. 56-7):
http://www.residentialarchitect.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=282&articleID=555037#.

See related link for double-page spread in print magazine:
Residential Architecture magazine Aug 2007 print issue (dbl page spread pp. 56-7)

GreenMobile® ranks number one in FEMA AHPP Grant Award

$5.9 Million Award (FEMA Alternative Housing Pilot Program)
Posted: August 09, 2007


(December 2006) FEMA announces award and selection of Mississippi’s GreenMobile™ project for the Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHPP). Mississippi’s GreenMobile™ project submittal was designed and trademarked by Professor Michael Berk, a faculty member at Mississippi State University School of Architecture. A national jury consisting of members from FEMA, AIA, DOE, and HUD selected and ranked the GreenMobile project number one of 29 submittals. In all, five projects were funded for a total of $388 million. The GreenMobile project was funded for $5.9 million.

This pilot program aims to expand the types of housing FEMA provides disaster-affected communities by identifying, developing and evaluating alternatives to FEMA travel trailers and mobile homes. This program will also provide housing to people with on-going housing needs due to the 2005 hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.

See following FEMA link for more detail:
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=32426

MEMA Mississippi Eco-Cottage Grant

MEMA Awards a $49,000. Design Advisor Grant to Berk for the GreenMobile® FEMA AHPP
Posted: January 23, 2008

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), has awarded a grant ($49,000.) to Professor Berk. He will act as the Design Advisor for the GreenMobile™ FEMA AHPP grant ($6 million previously awarded to the state) as the state transforms the GreenMobile™ into the newly named stream-lined Mississippi ECO-Cottage (October 2007).

See following MSU Press Release (Dec 2007) link for more detail:
http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4093

AIA COTE Teaching AWARD

National teaching recognition for course entitled: PASSIVE DESIGN SYSTEMS (Ecological Design)
Posted: October 16, 2007

American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) awarded recognition to Berk's course entitled: ARC 2713 Passive Design Systems (Ecological Design) for their Ecological Literacy In Architectural Education program in the Summer 2005.

See the following links for more information:
http://www.caad.msstate.edu/sarc/68/171/149/Berk-Receives-Recognition/
http://testprod.aia.org/cote_tides

GreenMobile® BOOK CITATION

ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY (AFH) recent BOOK [DESIGN LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN] CITES Berk's GreenMobile research
Posted: August 06, 2007

Berk's GreenMobileTM research/design was recently acknowledged and cited in the seminal book: Design Like You Give a Damn edited by Architecture For Humanity. This book academically illustrates and documents humanitarian design and construction around the world. Kate Stohr's chapter 100 years of Humanitarian Design features a 100 YEAR TIMELINE OF DISASTERS AND RESPONSES which runs the length of the chapter across the bottom pages 33 - 54. The greenMobile is pictured and referenced on page 52 - - - (year 2005 and Katrina).

Related Files:

» 09_greenMobile.pdf

GreenMobile® Interview (2006)

Interview by Jim Villette @ Healthy Building Network (GreenRelief Website)
Posted: April 24, 2007

Prof. Michael Berk and Kimberly Brown
Introducing the GreenMobile™
of Mississippi State University
February 10th, 2006
Jim Villette

The GreenMobile(TM) Housing Unit. Ultra-affordable, ecologically-minded, factory-built housing. Recently selected by FEMA Alternative Housing Pilot Program. (Service-marked, Trade-Marked, and copyrighted w/ US Patent Office)

Introduction
Mississippi State University is a hotbed of vision and action for ultra-affordable and environmentally friendly housing. The School of Architecture and the Carl Small Town Center are leading designers of sustainable buildings and communities.
In the weeks after Katrina tore through Mississippi, they proposed “to rapidly produce a new type of mobile housing for Gulf Coast residents.” [1]
These units, designed by Professor of Architecture Michael Berk, could serve areas with no utilities. They could remain permanent and healthy homes, or they could be disassembled and moved to other areas in need.
The project has a grand construct that draws from local natural systems: the building materials, heating and cooling cycles, and energy production and consumption. It even comes with a kit for planting deciduous trees, to provide more shade in places like the wide-open Mississippi Delta. This kind of housing bears little relationship to the dreary and artificial shelters that FEMA buys for relief, except for the economies of scale that come from building in a factory rather than on-site.
GreenRelief investigator Jim Vallette visited with Prof. Berk and Kimberly Brown, director of the Carl Small Town Center [2] in Starkville, Miss., and learned more about their sustainable housing venture that goes by the name of GreenMobile™.

Prof. Michael Berk: The GreenMobile™ project is based upon the traditional low-priced strategy of the single-wide mobile home. It is not redefining the industrial model, but, expanding the concept to seriously address issues of equity and sustainability. It’s still based upon a single unit, but has multiple components that can plug into it, to expand its use.
The hope is that it will be ultimately entirely green, that all the materials in it will be sustainable and local. As it stands now, we are using off-the-shelf products. Some of those products aren’t quite there, yet. We’re not going to wait for those products. We’re going to go ahead and make it the best we can, and keep revising it, refining it as those products come on line.
Kimberly Brown: Material manufacturers, as well: we’re really hoping they will come on board and make the appropriate pieces for the home.
MB: Vinyl certainly would not fall into the green category. That’s one product that we certainly will not be using. We’re hoping not to use drywall material. We’re hoping to use almost exclusively locally and sustainably harvested wood. That includes all wood finishes in the interior. It’s certainly going to be more durable and won’t require painting.
KB: It will require teaching the clients to learn how at what times of day to open the windows, day and night, how to use the daily thermal cycles.
MB: The hope is that a simple manual, no more than a couple pages, would enlighten an owner the best way to maximize the passive conditions of the building.
Jim Vallette: One of the exciting things you are doing is relying on local materials and labor – much more so than what FEMA is doing, shipping these trailers in from Indiana. Do you see a place for factories along the Gulf Coast as part of the rebuilding process?
MB: That possibility would be an amazing thing. You could put people to work, as well as build these units locally.
KB: And you would cut down of transportation costs.
MB: We’re a wood state. There’s a huge amount of plantation wood. Not a lot of it is sustainably harvested. Nonetheless, there are huge amounts available as a local resource. We hope to change that, and get plantation farming to be more environmentally responsible. In the meantime, that’s what is here and it would be good for the local economy, as well as reducing shipping costs.

Ultra-Affordability
MB: We’ve talked to U.S. Department of Agriculture people about giving low interest loans to people who qualify for the ultra-affordable housing marketplace. They’ve said they would even consider 35 and 40 year mortgages. That’s a pretty interesting thing. Now somebody who could only have afforded a single-wide trailer in the past with a 15-year chattel mortgage actually is going to pay less money to own a really well-built product.
From the standpoint of disaster relief housing, we have a permanent foundation system that has the ability to unhook itself. FEMA could put these down temporarily and then relocate them to another spot. Or FEMA could put them down and somebody could say, ‘you know what, I’m going to keep this.’ And then they could purchase it from FEMA.
KB: And then start adding on to it.
JV: That’s kind of like what Pliny Fisk’s after with the GoHome™ and GroHome™. [3]
MB: That’s exactly right, the idea that this could be even more stripped down. There are certain things that have to be on this single-wide in order for it to perform environmentally. We have plug-ins. His is a much more flexible, and more open, system. This one’s a lot more determinate to start with.
JV: You were saying that your target price is way lower than what FEMA’s paying now for 18 months of shelter.
MB: Significantly lower, yes. The emphasis of our project all along has been ultra-affordable housing. It’s costing FEMA $57,000 for 18 months use of a trailer – that’s $3,000 to $4,000 a month. We’re shooting for a target price for sale in the $50,000 to $60,000 price range. That would be for a two-bedroom, one-bath, or a three-bedroom, one-bath -- we’re still working on those numbers. The difficulty right now is with all the re-construction going on at the coast, our construction costs are going out of sight right now in this region. It’s going to be hard to get a real accurate number until a manufacturer comes in and looks at what they can do.

Development Plans
MB: We’ve been working on this for a few years. It’s kind of frustrating: we have identified clients but, before Katrina, nobody was interested in making it. Now a catastrophic event comes along, and this project starts to look good with respect to disaster relief housing.
Disaster relief, sad as it might be, might be the entrée to getting the Greenmobile™ production viable and in demand. I don’t think there’s a limit on disaster relief housing right now.
Last September, the USDA came through with a Rural Business Enterprise Grant to do a feasibility study on how to start a plant in an economically depressed city. When we received the grant, they cut out the prototype. Now we’re back to square one, but we aim to build the prototype by late summer or early fall. An entrepreneur is looking to start up a company a little north of here. If that goes ahead, he would be making this product for a certain region, which is yet to be determined.
KB: We do have plant space available.
MB: We’re trying to get somebody big to so something. If we had a wish, it would be that an enlightened manufactured housing company will see this as something of serious value, and begin to collaborate with us and bring it to fruition. It could be somebody like Warren Buffett [who owns Clayton Homes, the largest manufactured housing company]. If anybody might be interested in making this in a certain region, please contact us at the university. We’re looking for collaborators now.

Graphics courtesy of Prof. Michael Berk, Mississippi State Univ.
Video stills by Jim Vallette/Healthy Building Network, 2006.

Endnotes
[1] “A Letter from Dean West,” Fall 2005 Newsletter, College of Architecture, Art & Design, Mississippi State University. Available at:
[2] The Carl Small Town Center is a community design center located in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. It works with faculty, architects, intern architects, and students. The Greenmobile™ project is run through the Center, which is looking for additional funding.
[3] For more information on the GoHome™ and GroHome™ buildings, visit the home page of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, and read Sam Martin, “Pliny Fisk III / Gail Vittori Architecture,” Metropolis Magazine, December 19, 2005.
Additional Links
Overview of Sustainable Mobile Home project at Mississippi State University
Ari Shapiro, “Emergency Housing Need Sparks Creative Designs,” National Public Radio, October 25, 2005.
Kira L. Gould, “Experts Focus on How to Rebuild Low-Income Housing, McGraw-Hill Construction,
November 16, 2005
Jim Vallette, “Manufactured Housing: Blessing or Curse For Katrina Survivors?,” Healthy Building News, January 23, 2006

NPR Radio Feature OCT 2005

NPR Transcript - 'All Things Considered' Radio Feature w/ M. Berk and others
Posted: August 09, 2007

NPR Home Page

Katrina & Recovery

Emergency Housing Need Sparks Creative Designs

by Ari Shapiro All Things Considered, October 25, 2005

Edition: 5:00-6:00 PM ET

Index Terms:
4973680

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
This year's hurricane season and the earthquake in Pakistan have focused attention on, among other things, emergency housing. Architects and designers have been trying to respond to these disasters, designing innovative, low-cost emergency shelter. But as NPR's Ari Shapiro reports, designing that kind of housing is one thing; building it and installing it is another.

ARI SHAPIRO reporting:
Carib Martin has just built a new house on his property in Bethesda, Maryland. It took him about a week.

Mr. CARIB MARTIN: So, as you can see, it's 8-foot-by-8-foot-by-12-foot long, and the basic idea of this unit is it's really meant to go on the owner?s property whose home has been destroyed. So that way they can secure their property as well as start rebuilding as opposed to creating these trailer parks, basically, that they're doing now.

SHAPIRO: He calls it the HELP House. It cost him $8,000 to build. ! And now that he knows it works, he'd like to see it multiply.

Mr. MARTIN: Any designer, any creator wants their object, their thing, to be active in the world. You know, otherwise, it's just a game you play by yourself, and that's never any fun.

SHAPIRO: Response to the HELP House has been almost entirely positive, but nobody's offered to fund the project on a large scale. Architect Michael Berk has encountered the same problem at Mississippi State University, where he?s designed an energy-efficient mobile home that meets international building codes. His project is called the GreenMobile™.

Mr. MICHAEL BERK (Mississippi State University): Usually, nobody seems to like my work, except for a few people and they're willing to pay for it. Now everybody seems to like the GreenMobile™, and I can't find any money for it.

SHAPIRO: Part of the problem is that a large-scale emergency housing project requires at least as much business sense as it does design talent. And Berk is an architect, not an entrepreneur.

Mr. BERK: If I was a business person, I would be out traveling around the country right now trying to hook up with people. I'd be talking to venture capitalists. This would be a full-time job for me. Well, that's not what I do. I'm a teacher and I'm a researcher.

SHAPIRO: A non-profit group called Architecture for Humanity tries to help designers get their projects to those in need after a natural disaster. Kate Stohr?s one of the organization?s founders. She says the process can take years.

Ms. KATE STOHR (Co-founder, Architecture for Humanity): The first challenge is to sort of get people to think about it before the disaster happens, because once you?ve had a disaster of the magnitude of Katrina, for example, it?s too late to start thinking about emergency shelter.

SHAPIRO: AFH learned that lesson in 1999 when the organization sponsored a contest to design housing for refugees in war-torn Kosovo. The contest was an initial success, with more than 200 entries coming in. Then Architecture for Humanity learned how long it would take to get any of the entries to Kosovo in big enough numbers to matter.

Ms. STOHR: It?s really tragic in a certain way because these designers spend so much time working on them. But in part, the problem is that they?re not working with manufacturing partners or building systems partners. So--and a lot of times they can get it so far on their own, and then they need support.

SHAPIRO: Some projects are more successful than others. At Auburn University in Alabama, D.K. Ruth is working on a project called a warm, dry room. It?s a shipping container modified to house people for roughly $2,000. Ruth says the governor?s support gives him confidence that this project will likely be put to use along the Gulf Coast when it?s finished.

Mr. D.K. RUTH (Auburn University): Governor Riley was very excited about what we?re trying to do for the state of Alabama, and he?s the one that really has! connected us to FEMA and to the state emergency relief agencies.

SHAPIRO: The need for short-term housing is urgent when disaster strikes. Then it tends to fade as other forms of help arrive. But designers of these emergency solutions are patient; they know that even if FEMA doesn?t use their idea for this disaster, there will always be a next one.
Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
Copyright ?2005 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR?s Permissions Coordinator at (202) 513-2030.
Record Number: 200510252102