Builders since 1980, General Contractor since 1988, Boa Constructor Building and Design has been serving the Santa Cruz area with quality and integrity. We are a comprehensive green building and design company, specializing in residential remodels, additions, kitchens, baths, new homes and granny units (ADU’s) and strawbale construction.
Solar Strawbale Home
We have a dedicated and talented crew and offer many services, as listed below:
Design and/ or Construction of Custom Homes
Design and/ or Construction of Additions and Remodels
Bathroom and Kitchen Renovations
ADU’s and Outbuildings
Decks and Arbors
(Builders since 1980, we have a conscientious, competent crew to build designs from any architect or designer.)
Green Building and Design Consultation and Education
Strawbale Design, Building and Consultation
Adobe Restoration
Passive Solar Design
Land Development
Permaculture Landscape
Grey Water Diversion
Rain Water Catchment
Solar Electric Photovoltaic PV/ Shading Analysis
Interior Design Services
Green Makeovers
Consultation and Implementation of Upgrades for the Buying and Selling of Homes
Please visit our website for a more in depth description of who we are, our projects and stories from our satisfied customers:
Green Building Design
Solar Strawbale Interior
Using natural design concepts such as passive solar (using the sun as a natural resource), site orientation, cooling with the inherent wind patterns, appropriate technology, efficient use of smaller buildings and products with low embodied energy & healthful composition, we design comprehensive systems to let nature work for you. When you treat a building as a living system, taking cues from the larger living system it is a part of, spaces heat and cool efficiently, maintaining comfortable consistent temperatures using minimal energy with simple technology. Enhancing a house’s performance with energy and water efficient products and renewable energy technologies provide shelters that return a greater long term economic performance. Natural design and building places importance on relationships, including relationships with clients. Supporting you to prioritize needs optimizes the best use of resources. But to truly reflect nature, one must always consider beauty. Homes using natural design and build principals are light, comfortable, livable and beautiful. They promote health and an opportunity to connect with our greater environment. This new generation of homes with its forward thinking ideas create spaces that give back to individuals, families and the world.
Join the Global Community.
Save resources…that saves you money.
Increase your resale value.
Get money back…Federal and State tax incentives and rebates for energy efficiency.
Residential Design
Passive Solar Design
Building naturally assumes a home has integrity that goes beyond personal preference. Whether remodeling or building from the ground up, sustainable building and design modernizes, clarifies and upholds the vernacular of a house, implementing natural design principals & resource saving technologies to create a defined vision for the life of a building.
This is the future of design and can be implemented on a project of any size, often creating a blueprint for future direction. Naturally designed and built homes feel calm and harmonious. Imprinting our current likes and dislikes over and over onto the buildings we inhabit without the support of trained professionals can be an expensive practice. Construction is a major material user, perhaps one-third of all material flux per year in the US. Buildings also require massive amounts of energy, consume water, and are a source of toxic and ecotoxic waste . As our needs as a nation change, these practices are being called into question. They are becoming obsolete in the new vistas of housing, replaced by redesigning for a home’s life span, taking into consideration future as well as current needs and greater long term economic performance without compromising future generation’s ability to do the same.
Enter the new generation of homes.
Green Building
Adobe Restoration Before
Adobe Restoration After
Adobe Interior
As Green Builders we are responsible for maintaining integrity while creating healthful environments. In order to do this we tend building sites responsibly by deconstructing instead of demolishing, reusing whenever possible and by minimizing waste. We use nontoxic materials, reclaimed and certifiably harvested wood, recycled materials, products with low embodied energy and nontoxic composition. These practices cultivate healthful working environments for homeowners as well as employees.
Even in the most efficient and mindful building environment, a home takes tremendous resource to build. Emphasizing quality, longevity, efficiency, use and beauty, we strive to offset these costs by increasing a home’s value both economically and environmentally.
Addressing the intrusion of moisture or mold, eliminating drafts, insulating, using quality windows, energy efficient appliances and proper ventilation all contribute to the overall performance of a house. In our efficient, well built homes we hope to create living environments that are easier to maintain, long lasting and provide a sense of comfort so you get the most out of your investment and live your life in a supportive environment.
New Construction
ADU & Studio
New Construction allows you to maximize the use of green building materials, principals and technologies throughout your project to create a comprehensive environment of interlocking systems that maximize comfort and minimize cost of living for you and the planet.
Additions
Before Addition Remodel
After Remodel / Addition
Long term economic performance of a building is defined by how the built environment functions, efficiently heating and cooling itself without complicated technologies, longevity of the active systems installed in the house and how a home can grow in time to incorporate the needs of families without expensive cosmetic remodels.
Additions are a great opportunity to apply natural principals to your house.
It is important when implementing Natural Design to take available resources into consideration. This doesn’t imply just the cost of building materials from cradle to grave and the embodied energy of products. It incorporates your own financial resources as part of the whole system. Additions can be way to grow your home with the growing needs of your life.
Kitchen and Bath Remodels
Kitchen
Remodeling is considered a green practice, recycling and reusing existing resources to create enhanced living environments.
Most homes are in need of, or can be improved by, the remodeling of kitchens, baths, laundry rooms and more open floor plans to create better use of space and more graceful living.
Transform your home into a beautiful sanctuary with a company you can trust.
Decks and Trellises
Arbor For Passive Cooling
Ipe Deck & Screened Sleeping Porch
We use nontoxic materials, reclaimed and certified sustainably harvested wood, recycled materials, products with low embodied energy and nontoxic composition.
Project Consulting
Education
“Consulting” most often means “educating” in the “Green Building” field. We think of it as giving back, planting seeds, creating stepping stones towards a more harmonious future when we are truly giving back to nature as much, if not more, than it gives us.
We are available as Green building educators and demonstrators. We are guest lecturers at Cabrillo and DeAnza Community Colleges. One of our customers offers monthly tours to the public of their solar strawbale home. Please contact us to schedule a tour.
As experts in Strawbale building, we are available for “Bale Raisings” and preparation.
We also offer consultation and implementation of upgrades for the buying and selling of homes. Please see our Interior design section below.
Project Management
New Home
In the building phase, we strive to be mindful of the homeowner’s experience and make this opportunity a great journey for everyone involved. We communicate and care about your project.
Solar Electric, Rain Water Catchment, Grey Water
Skyote Retreat Center
Rainwater Catchment
Grey Water Diverter
Earthen Plaster
Earthen Plaster Interior
To truly reflect nature, one must always consider beauty. Homes using natural design and build principals are light, comfortable, livable and beautiful. They promote health and an opportunity to connect with our greater environment. This new generation of homes with its forward thinking ideas create spaces that give back to individuals, families and the world.
Interior Design
Adobe Renovation
Interior designs services:
Support with all decisions regarding details on the interior and exterior of a project in the design and build phase to create a coherent atmosphere that exudes the personality of the individual clients while remaining true to the vernacular of the built environment increasing its value, longevity and grace.
Help for homeowners incorporating natural building principals with guidance in choosing and procuring all fixtures, lighting, appliances, hardware, etc. in the build phase.
Remodeling detail design consultations
Whole house green makeovers
House rearranging
Color consultation
Consultation for the resale or buying of homes
House dressing and staging
Guest Bedroom
Master Bedroom
Re-inhabit your revitalized home with our comprehensive interior design and green building makeovers.
Please visit our website for a more in depth description of who we are, our projects and stories from our satisfied customers.
Website: www.buildingnaturally.com
Lic. # 525 188
Michele Landegger & Debrae Lopes
831-334-1147
Boa handled a complete makeover remodel and addition of a house I built twenty years ago for my extended family. As a former general contractor for many years I was happy to watch the Boa team maintain a steady attention to the details of time management, high constructions standards and the very specific needs of the project. A fine spirit of creativity and talent pervades every working day for the Boa team. This is rare on a construction site and reflects a respect for the eagerness of the client to achieve the best results for their wished and the budget. They deliver what they promise.
“Michele is an outstanding builder, not only because of the high quality of work she produces but also because of the high quality of listening to the client she guarantees. This makes for a win/win.”
Michele and Debrae are absolute professionals who are reliable, extremely responsible, honest, and overall people of integrity. We are so delighted to have had Boa Constructor as our contractors for our solar straw bale home. Everything went smoothly from the timeliness to the sub-contractors to the sustainable material choices. Michele and Debrae are experts through and through. They are also extremely talented artistically. We highly recommend Boa Constructor without any hesitation; you will be hard pressed to find contractors and designers of their caliber!
Michele and her crew built our home 4 years ago and it was a fantastic experience. Given the chance, I’d do it all over again. Michele’s ability to communicate, problem solve and her creativity made the process a great adventure. Her crew was great to be around and each member gave their area the attention to detail any homeowner would appreciate.
We hired Boa Constructor to help us with a green remodel and addition 3 years ago. We chose to work with Boa based on their expertise with green building practices, impeccable references, and most of all, the great crew. We really appreciated the open, easy communication and professionalism with which Michelle led the project. The Boa crew was respectful, responsible, hard working, and a lot of fun! Boa helped us with green options and decisions at each step and the project came in on time and on budget. Boa Constructor is a trustworthy and reliable builder. Quality work, quality people.
In the summer of 2008, Michele and her crew did an extensive kitchen and family room remodel on the home we had just purchased and we couldn’t be happier with the results and the overall experience. Michele was accessible and collaborative throughout, kept us on track, offered excellent design suggestions, and stayed on top of our budget and timeline. If we had a question, Michele responded to phone calls and emails within a day. Her crew was wonderful and very talented, as were the subcontractors. Their work is excellent and we wholeheartedly recommend Boa Constructor.
Michele Landdegger and Debrae Lopes have done multiple remodels/additions for us over the years. They have been wonderful to work with and the outcome is always beautiful and very nice to live in. I would highly recommend Boa Constructor to anyone looking for quality building or remodeling.