Wing House from Recycled 747 Jet Airplane Finally Under Construction
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin 
on 06.28.08
Francie Rehwald of California is trading in her plain home for a plane home. "My mom is definitely a hippie at heart," says her daughter in the AP video clip below. TreeHugger reported the original plans to build the recycled 747 house already in 2005. It takes time to get approvals for building a house that will need to be marked so rescue teams know it is not debris strewn by a crash!
The Wing House is a sleek and elegant design, without doubt. But we ask the hard questions which the mainstream media, so enthused about the jet plane aspect, neglects to ask: does this newest mansion exemplify sustainable architecture?
It looks like the Rehwalds are getting exactly the house that architect David Hertz planned: the plane's wings form the two main roof sections of a multi-level house. All the sections of the jet plane will be used in some aspect of the project -- which includes outbuildings such as a cockpit meditation chamber and a fuselage art studio. The jet plane itself cost a bargain $40,000, less than half the budget for running the helicopters transporting the sectioned plane to the building site.
But is it eco-friendly? On the one hand, it represents a novel use of recycled materials. Integrating the components of a 747 into glass-and-concrete structures is a different approach from previous recycled plane architecture, such as the recycled jet plane student pavilion or the recycled jet plane library proposed for Guadalajara (both projects by design firm LOT-EK).
On the other hand, this could be seen as greenwashing for another California mansion. There are options for recycling airplanes which do not require construction of a $2 million residential palace. Nonetheless, reclaiming the energy invested in assembling the finished jet plane from its respective raw materials has a certain value. However, the question here is not: "does this keep one more jet plane out of the landfill?" The question is: "Is the jet plane merely a clever structural material in an energy-efficient, sustainably built residence?"
The architects, studioea, confirm that "Solar power, radiant heating and natural ventilation will be incorporated as well as high performance heat mirror glazing." Well, given that palatial residences will be built, at least let them be beacons for development of sustainable building techniques.
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I've often wondered if the relatively thick steel of the shipping containers could be recycled into a thinner steel siding, roofing, and framework to create either larger living spaces or multiple dwellings (or maybe a duplex)
The loads seen on the roof of a house have got to be less than the weight seen on the bottom container in a large stack.
I mention this as a wing needs to be really strong relative to a roof, so wonder if the same would apply here, i.e. did they use two roofs worth of aluminum to build this house?
The main problem I see with this is in high winds your roof may want to take off.
As someone who makes a living building these airplanes I would have to say that this idea is very impractical and wasteful. It makes for good headlines but it would have been better to just recycle the metal.
It's really not the same as my pal who lives in his Cessna 150, is it?
==auth. note==
Hmmmm. You can live in a plane, but you can't fly a house!