• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

  • What we do
    • Process & Practice
    • Architecture & Engineering
    • Building
    • Interior Design
    • Solar & Energy Technology
  • Who we are
    • Our Team
    • The Company
    • Martha’s Vineyard
    • Beyond our Shores
    • Our History
    • Our Model
    • Careers
    • Internships
  • Portfolio
    • Residential
    • Non-Residential
    • Solar & Energy Technology
    • Affordable Housing
  • Media
    • Newsletter
    • Press Archive
    • Blog Archive
  • Contact
  • Search

The Company We Keep

Dear Reader,
This blog is now an archive. John Abrams (Founder of South Mountain, author of this blog, and a book of the same name) retired on December 31, 2022. All posts published up until this date are preserved below.

For updates on John's next chapter, visit abramsangell.com.

For updates on South Mountain's second act, subscribe to our newsletter using the form below.

Deep Energy Retrofits

SunPower: There’s More

April 25, 2017 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

For the Earth Day campaign mentioned in the last post, SunPower created two videos and three blog posts. This link will take you to their second video and second blog post. Please take the journey to explore the SunPower/South Mountain relationship further. This one is about the connection between our devotion to craft and our passion for solar. The two go hand in hand.

We’ll send out another reminder when the 3rd SunPower blog post is up. Thanks for listening!

17_RESI-201_EarthBlog2-Social-Images-Twitter-2

Filed Under: Design, Energy, Environment, Martha's Vineyard Tagged With: clean energy, Deep Energy Retrofits, earth day, earth month, Martha's Vineyard, solar, SunPower

More than a Gash in the Knee

June 7, 2010 by John Abrams 3 Comments

As the Gulf well spews daily destruction and BP scratches it’s head, it’s a time to think about technology and its uses (well. . .  it’s been time, for a long time, but now it’s time again).  Ever since the the first stone axe glanced off its target and gashed the user’s knee, or even before that, we have been inventing technologies that we don’t fully know how to control. But now the things we make have the potential to wreak havoc on a tragic scale.

Nature has always had that potential, but nature also has the ability to repair itself; we humans apparently do not.  Bill McKibben, in his new book Eaarth:  Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, says that “For almost all of human history, our society was small and nature was large; in a few brief decades that key ratio has reversed.”

Read More about More than a Gash in the Knee

Filed Under: Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Martha's Vineyard Tagged With: BP, Deep Energy Retrofits, Eaarth, EF Schumacher, Gulf spill, Ian Bowles, McKibben, Small is Beautiful

Shop Class & Deep Energy

February 4, 2010 by John Abrams 4 Comments

In 1980, when Hurricane Bob ripped through Martha’s Vineyard, it tore down a big hickory tree alongside Humphrey’s Bakery in West Tisbury.  We took the butt log, hauled it to our yard, and milled it into planks.  Until a few months ago they sat on stickers somewhere deep in our wood storage building waiting for my son Pinto to make a rocking chair for me and my wife Chris.

Read More about Shop Class & Deep Energy

Filed Under: Design, Martha's Vineyard, South Mountain Company Tagged With: Deep Energy Retrofits, Kieran and Timberlake, Matthew Crawford, Sears Roebuck kit homes, The Philadelphia Four

Rosenbaum on Deep Energy

August 5, 2009 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

This is a post about a local event, so it may not mean much to those of you far away.

When it comes to houses, there’s plenty of talk these days about Zero Energy, Passive Houses, and even strange new terms like Deep Energy Retrofit.

It’s not just talk.  For old friend Marc Rosenbaum, of Energysmiths, it’s practice.  And it’s passion, too.  Marc has been working closely with us for the past 20 years.

Rosenbaum CCC Poster

Marc’s projects include three of the American Institute of Architects Top Ten Green Projects.. An experienced and enthusiastic teacher and speaker, he has trained thousands of professionals., including several trainings of Vineyard architects and builders.

Come to the Chilmark Community Center and hear where we’re headed with housing and how we might get there.  It’s free.

Filed Under: Energy, Martha's Vineyard, South Mountain Company Tagged With: Chilmark, Deep Energy Retrofits, Energysmiths, John Abrams, Marc Rosenbaum, Martha's Vineyard, South Mountain Company, Zero Energy Homes

sidebar

Footer

UPS/Fedex

15 Red Arrow Road
West Tisbury, MA 02575

USPS

Post Office Box 1260
West Tisbury, MA 02575

Call/Email

508.693.4850

info@southmountain.com

Subscribe

Follow Us

  • Instagram
  • Houzz
  • Pinterest