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A New Norris House integrates water systems into its landscape by collecting and treating roof rainwater, infiltrating selected greywater flows, and handling site stormwater in planted beds rather than treating the yard as decoration. The University of Tennessee-led project in Norris, Tennessee, was designed, built, occupied, and evaluated as a research case study. Its documented results are historical findings from monitoring that ended in 2014, not a current guarantee of water quality, legal approval, or system operation.
The house revisited Norris’s 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority model-community history while testing how architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and everyday living could share one resource strategy. The result is best understood as a coordinated house-and-landscape experiment, not simply a high-performance showcase home.
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What is A New Norris House?
A New Norris House was a University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design design/build/evaluate project in Norris, Tennessee. Teams from architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, engineering, environmental studies, and biosystems engineering worked on the house and its site as one research problem. The project received a 2014 Professional Awards Honor Award in Research from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), along with other recognitions listed in the award entry, including LEED for Homes Platinum and an AIA COTE Top Ten Green Projects Award. The ASLA project record describes the work and its monitoring program.
Norris supplies an important historical frame. The Tennessee Valley Authority developed the town as a model community in 1933. The new project commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Norris Project and used that setting to reconsider how a home, its landscape, and shared resources might fit together. Instead of adding isolated “green” products to a conventional house, the team treated water flows as a visible part of the site’s design.
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How does the house integrate water systems into its landscape?
The project links four operations: roof-water collection, treatment and storage, greywater infiltration, and stormwater management. Rain falling on the roof was collected and treated for specified household and landscape uses. Water from the bathroom sink, shower, and clothes washer was directed to a vegetated greywater treatment bed, while blackwater remained connected to the existing sewer. Cistern overflow and other site runoff were directed into planted infiltration features.
That arrangement makes the landscape perform infrastructure work. The site was planned to clean, slow, store, and infiltrate water while also providing food production, habitat, circulation, and outdoor living space. The ASLA jury summarized the research value this way: “This is the kind of project students should be engaged with more – the longer term, rigorous investigation of how design really engages sustainable systems. Students get to see what really works, and what doesn’t.” The quotation is attributed to the 2014 ASLA Awards Jury; the source does not identify an individual juror.
What were the house and site like?
The 2013 research paper reports a 1,006-square-foot single-family house on a previously developed 0.25-acre infill lot. Its compact size and previously developed setting matter: the project was testing resource systems in an ordinary residential footprint rather than on a large demonstration parcel.
Documented site elements included:
- vegetable beds for productive gardening;
- a native-grass meadow;
- a vegetated greywater treatment bed;
- rainwater infiltration beds and four terraced rain gardens;
- a gravel path; and
- outdoor living space.
These are case-study descriptions from the published paper, not a current survey of the property. The sources do not establish whether every feature remains, who owns the house now, or whether visitors can enter the site.
How was roof rainwater collected and treated?
Roof runoff was routed into a collection and treatment system, then stored for household and landscape demands allowed by the project’s permits. The ASLA entry reports an average of about 800 gallons of treated rainwater per month for indoor and exterior faucet use during the monitored period. It also reports that the studied supply was sufficient to meet 30% of the needs of a two-person household.
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Those numbers describe the project’s measured conditions, climate, occupancy, storage, and monitoring period. They should not be converted into a promise that a similarly sized roof will supply 30% of another household’s water. Roof area, rainfall timing, tank volume, treatment design, leaks, demand, and local rules can all change the result.
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There is an essential legal distinction, however. The 2013 paper states that the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) restricted treated rainwater to non-human-consumption uses at that time. Permitted uses described in the paper included clothes washing, toilet flushing, and landscape irrigation. A laboratory result does not itself authorize drinking water, and the historical study does not verify current Tennessee or Norris requirements.
What happened to cistern overflow and stormwater?
Rather than sending overflow directly into a conventional storm drain, the project infiltrated cistern overflow through four terraced rain gardens, according to the ASLA narrative. These planted depressions spread water across the site, increasing contact with soil and roots and reducing the speed and concentration of runoff. The award entry describes this as part of a broader goal to manage all site stormwater.
Rain gardens are not just ornamental beds in this scheme. Their soil profile, vegetation, inlet elevations, and overflow routes determine whether water ponds briefly, infiltrates, or safely leaves the site during larger storms. The published project reports preliminary results indicating safe and effective infiltration in a planted landscape bed, but it does not provide a current inspection or a universal performance guarantee for other soils and slopes.
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How did the greywater system work?
The monitored greywater stream came from the bathroom sink, shower, and clothes washer. It was sent to a vegetated infiltration bed designed to treat and infiltrate that flow on site. Toilet discharge and other blackwater remained in the property’s existing sewer connections, so the project did not reuse all household wastewater.
Separating greywater from blackwater reduced the treatment challenge, but it did not eliminate design or regulatory obligations. A greywater bed must account for daily volume, soaps and lint, soil infiltration rates, seasonal conditions, setbacks, and an overflow or failure path. The project’s team had to work through experimental permitting and local ordinance changes to conduct the research. The historical paper discusses infiltration capacity and monitoring; it should not be read as evidence that an unpermitted residential installation would be lawful or safe.
What did the monitoring actually measure?
The ASLA entry describes three years of residency and water-system data collection, with the monitoring program concluding in May 2014. The research paper adds that samples were sent to certified and university laboratories and that the team tracked the performance of infiltration features. This combination of occupied-house data and laboratory analysis is why the project is a research case study rather than a rendering of an unbuilt concept.
| Documented item | Reported detail | Source and context |
|---|---|---|
| House area | 1,006 square feet | ARCC research paper, 2013 |
| Lot | 0.25-acre previously developed infill lot | ARCC research paper, 2013 |
| Monitored occupancy and systems | Three years; monitoring concluded in May 2014 | ASLA award entry, 2014 |
| Average treated rainwater supplied | About 800 gallons per month | ASLA award entry; project-period figure |
| Reported household share | 30% of a two-person household’s needs | ASLA award entry; project-period finding |
| Water-quality report | Samples met referenced EPA drinking-water standards | ASLA and ARCC accounts; not a current legal approval |
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The figures are useful for understanding what the team observed, but they are not a replacement for a current site assessment. Neither source establishes present-day water quality, maintenance records, equipment condition, ownership, or operating costs.
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Water reuse is governed by public-health and environmental rules as well as by engineering. The project required changes to local ordinances and experimental permits for its greywater monitoring. The ASLA entry also described continued work on deed restrictions and permanent ordinances when it was published.
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The regulatory history explains why the project cannot be copied by selecting tanks and filters from a catalog. A jurisdiction may distinguish between rainwater used for irrigation, toilet flushing, laundry, and drinking. It may require backflow protection, cross-connection control, treatment verification, inspections, licensed installation, or a sewer connection for blackwater. Requirements can change after a study ends, so anyone considering a similar system should confirm rules with the current local building, plumbing, and environmental authorities before design or construction.
What makes the landscape more than a drainage plan?
The site combines ecological functions with ordinary reasons to occupy a yard. Vegetable beds support food production; a native-grass meadow changes the character of the lot and can provide habitat; paths and outdoor rooms make the water infrastructure visible and usable. Treatment beds and rain gardens are positioned as parts of the lived landscape rather than hidden mechanical equipment.
This integration also creates trade-offs. Planting, soil media, and open water paths need maintenance. Infiltration areas require protection from compaction and contamination. A productive garden may have different soil and irrigation requirements from a meadow. Designing all of these functions together can reduce duplicated infrastructure, but it demands coordination among grading, plumbing, planting, access, and long-term stewardship.
What can builders and designers learn from the case study?
A New Norris House offers a process that can inform other projects without pretending that its exact details are universal.
- Map water before selecting products. Identify roof catchments, household demand, greywater sources, blackwater routes, overflow elevations, soil infiltration areas, and emergency discharge paths.
- Separate water qualities. Keep blackwater, greywater, roof runoff, and stormwater distinctions explicit. Each stream has different treatment, health, and permitting implications.
- Design the landscape and plumbing together. Tank location, pipe runs, treatment beds, rain gardens, paths, planting zones, and maintenance access should be coordinated during site planning, not added after grading.
- Define permitted end uses. A system that produces laboratory-quality samples may still be limited to non-potable applications by regulation. Label outlets and prevent cross-connections accordingly.
- Plan for overflow and failure. Every tank, treatment bed, and infiltration area needs a safe route for storms, blockages, saturated soil, power loss, or maintenance shutdowns.
- Monitor after occupancy. The Norris project’s value came partly from collecting data while people lived in the house. A design assumption should be checked against actual rainfall, demand, water quality, and soil performance.
- Document the rules and maintenance. Permits, sampling schedules, filter changes, planting care, access routes, and responsibility for repairs should be recorded for future occupants.
These steps are design guidance derived from the project’s documented concerns, not a construction specification. Local professionals and authorities must determine whether a proposed system is suitable and legal for a particular site.
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How does Norris’s history change the meaning of the project?
Norris was planned as a model community at a time when the TVA was using town design to demonstrate new approaches to power, land, and public life. By returning to Norris for the 75th anniversary of the Norris Project, the team placed a contemporary house inside that longer experiment. The question was not simply whether a house could consume less water, but whether architecture and landscape could make resource cycles legible to residents and the surrounding community.
That historical continuity helps explain the project’s emphasis on education and measurement. Students participated in design and construction, then observed how systems behaved in an occupied home. The ASLA jury’s comment about seeing what “really works, and what doesn’t” captures the project’s practical purpose: sustainability claims become more useful when they are tied to operation, maintenance, regulation, and evidence.
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Use the 2013 ARCC research paper and the 2014 ASLA award entry for the historical design and monitoring record. They do not verify current Tennessee or Norris ordinances, present-day operation, ownership, maintenance, visitor access, or the condition of the rainwater and greywater systems.
For a new project, confirm current requirements directly with the relevant Tennessee and local authorities, obtain site-specific soil and drainage information, and have plumbing, structural, landscape, and public-health issues reviewed by qualified professionals. Treat the reported 800 gallons per month, 30% household share, and laboratory findings as evidence from this particular monitored house—not as promises for a different roof, climate, household, or permit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a homeowner copy A New Norris House’s rainwater system exactly?
No. The documented system depended on a particular roof, lot, climate, occupancy pattern, treatment train, and permit conditions. A new design needs current code review, site-specific storage and infiltration calculations, and a decision about which end uses are legally allowed.
Did the project reuse toilet wastewater?
No. The research description keeps blackwater on the existing sewer connection. The monitored greywater stream came from the bathroom sink, shower, and clothes washer and was routed to a vegetated infiltration bed.
Is A New Norris House open for tours today?
The cited project records do not verify current visitor access, ownership, or operating status. Contact the relevant property owner or University of Tennessee program before making travel plans.
Does meeting drinking-water standards mean the rainwater was approved for drinking?
Not necessarily. The study reports laboratory results against referenced EPA standards, while the 2013 paper says TDEC restricted treated rainwater to non-human-consumption uses at that time. Testing and legal authorization are separate questions.
