mHouse Rising

mHouse Rising

by John Aufderhaar

The team behind Surface & Panel magazine has a fanatical dedication to create a beautifully designed magazine with interesting, compelling editorial. This dedication is owed not only to the readers, but also to the advertisers Surface & Panel is privileged to serve. We at Surface & Panel don’t take this task lightly and try our best to continually improve. We know we are only as good as our last issue.

Building the mHouse is similar to publishing a magazine. Compelling architecture and beautiful interior design are critical as we showcase the best our industry has to offer in surface materials, components and finished products. And like Surface & Panel, the mHouse is not cutting corners or playing it safe. Vetter/Denk Architects and Amy Carman Design are creating an environment in which cutting-edge products will be displayed in cutting-edge applications for the world to take in. We like to refer to the mHouse Project as a “residential research lab for tomorrow’s modern home”, but it is much more than that. John Vetter and Amy Carman are committed to creating an extraordinary space where products from multiple sponsors harmoniously meld together. The mHouse will be ethereal in its affect, creating a material-driven universe that instantly impresses on each visitor a sense of balance, beauty and brilliance.

Present Tense

No longer is the mHouse stuck in the future tense. Excavation is complete, the foundation is poured, the subfloor is on, and the shell and core are under construction. RFPI Joists, RigidLam LVL and the new Ridigcoat subfloor underlayment from Roseburg Forest Products Company has been used exclusively for the mHouse’s shell and core. Architect John Vetter could not have been happier about the use of Roseburg Products, as he has consistently specified them in his other projects. He insisted on the use of new Rigidcoat underlayment as an insurance policy against the summer rains of the Midwest.

As fate would have it, 12 inches of rain fell in a 13-day period as the mHouse subfloor construction began. Roseburg’s Rigidcoat is produced with a water-repellant coating to protect the subfloor until the structure is enclosed. “This is the first time I’ve actually gotten to use this new product and it absolutely saved us,” says Vetter. “OSB or any other unprotected underlayment would likely have been a disaster after two weeks of pounding rain. The subfloor seriously looks as good as the day it was installed.”

Updates on the construction of the mHouse Project will appear in each upcoming issue of Surface & Panel magazine, online at www.SurfaceAndPanel.com and on the Surface & Panel social channels. Stay tuned for more details as the mHouse rises.