Photovoltaic Systems

Archive for the ‘Single-family’ Category

This is the Live Work Home, one of the winning proposals (with the R-House) in the From the Ground Up Competition in Syracuse, New York, designed by Cook+Fox Architects.  The home was awarded LEED Platinum certification earlier this month, a fitting one-year anniversary since the homeowners John and Kathy Miranda moved into the home in November 2010.  Here’s more about this beautiful, durable home with an inventive design.

One of the more obvious features of Live Work Home is the perforated screen that wraps the western and northern facade.  It’s made with a medium density overlay — plywood with a weather-resistant resin layer — that’s painted white on the underside.

From the interior, rays of the sun that pass through the screen mimic “dappled light filtering through a tree canopy,” according to Cook+Fox.

A garage-type front door creates a front porch that folds down if need be.  Beyond that, Live Work Home has a long, narrow, single-level floor plan that facilitates aging in place, as well as a lifetime of waste-free remodeling.  There are no columns and the heating element is buried in radiant flooring.  The Mirandas can rearrange sliding doors and mobile partitions to accommodate life as it happens.

In fact, the Mirandas moved into the home with plans to both live and work within the available 1,400 square feet.  Live Work Home doubles as the owners’ environmental consulting business.

There was an old home on the property that was deconstructed piece by piece.  It turns out, old growth pine and hemlock were reclaimed and put to new use in the form of flooring and cabinets.

Other materials were selected to protect the indoor environmental quality. A heat recovery ventilator circulates fresh air throughout the home.

The SIPs envelope saves energy and perhaps a little construction waste at the outset with members cut to size.  Also inside, Live Work Home has casework modules that can be added, subtracted, or reconfigured to suit the owners needs, such as through combined beds, desks, or additional storage.

The LEED Platinum project was built for about $250,000.  Team members include Cook+Fox Architects, Home HeadQuarters Inc. (builder), Terrapin Bright Green, LLC (environmental consultant), Northeast Green Building Consulting, LLC, Severud Associates (structural engineer), ARUP (MEP engineer – competition), Jaros, Baum & Bolles (MEP engineer – project), and Terrain NYC (landscape architecture).

[+] More about the Live Work Home in Syracuse.

Credits: Cook+Fox Architects.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Work Begins on New LEED Platinum Prefab
2. First LEED Platinum Home in Fort Worth
3. LEED Platinum Sungazing Home in Utah

Over Thanksgiving break, I enjoyed reading about this small, energy-efficient home in North Carolina built using the Harbinger plan offered by the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.  Built to International Building Code requirements, the plan includes a loft, home office, kitchen, bathroom, living room, and deck — tightly placed in less than 500 square feet!  Details are hard to come by, but Tumbleweed sells this plan for $695 and estimates that it costs about $33,000 in materials to build.

[+] More about Harbinger Plans by Tumbleweed.

Credits: Daryl Shaw. 

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Popomo is a Simple Modern Tiny House
2. The First Passive House in North Carolina
3. Tiny Bungalows Unveiled by Tumbleweed

Southtown Greenbound is a new, short documentary of an award-winning prototype development — the Biering Project — that’s both affordable and sustainable in San Antonio, Texas. Biering includes two, 1,500 square-foot homes wrapped in a diaphanous aluminum screen that reduces solar heat gain, fosters privacy during the day, and illuminates during the night. The screen truly distinguishes the homes.

Biering Project received LEED-H Silver and has grey water irrigation system, tankless hot water heaters, low-e windows, European-style kitchens, Energy Star appliances, and private garden spaces.

The homes were developed by architect Hilary Scruggs, who designed, developed, and built them homes herself. She’s featured prominently in Southtown Greenbound, sharing background on the twin rental properties.

Both homes leased quickly so Scruggs is moving on to a 1,300 square-foot speculative home and a five-unit rental, according to Residential Architect.

[+] Watch other videos about the Biering Project.

Credits: Geoff Sheerar and Operative Ventures.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Building an Austin Tiny House [Video]
2. Glidehouse Unfolds on an Island [Video]
3. 32 Containers Later: Providence Awaits a Vibrant New Office Space [Video]

This mid-century modern home in Savannah, Georgia — originally developed by John Ahern in 1955 — was recently listed as a Best Green House in Green Source Magazine.  The home went through a full restoration and renovation directed by owners Cornelia Stumpf and Celestino Piralla of CSCP Consult, who ended up receiving a Silver Award for a Whole House Renovation under $200,000 from Qualified Remodeler Magazine and the President’s Award from the Historic Savannah Foundation in summer 2011.

Prior to purchase, the green home sat vacant in an estate sale for a couple years and was in the hands of a family for about 55 years prior to that.  Stumpf and Piralla wanted to restore the place pursuant to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, but they also needed to maintain a budget, fix water damage, and repair a portion of the sunken foundation.

Stumpf and Piralla preserved lots of original materials, including the windows, glass sliding doors, tiles in bath, a GE oven, concrete floors, slate floor, exterior lamps/ and posts, bathroom fixtures for light and plumbing, light switches throughout, as well as the original layout and features such as the fireplace, soffit lights, and post and beam ceiling.

They added spray foam in the roof, a clear-coated tongue and groove wood in the ceiling, and a new pool in the backyard (shown below).  They removed old carpet and wallpaper and repaired the existing concrete floor.  They also installed a new ground drainage system to keep water from infiltrating the home in the future.

Some of the products incorporated into the renovation include FLOR carpet tiles, Bosch washer and dryer, Fagor induction cooktop, Caesarstone counters, Bazzeo cabinets, Blanco sink and faucet, Liebherr fridge and freezer, solar shades on the windows, high-efficiency wood doors, and Sherwin Williams paints, to name osme of the tjre

You can also see the prefab outbuilding, which we discussed already, and the kitchen renovation finished with Bazzèo cabinets and veneers.

Credits: © Richard Leo Johnson/Atlantic Archives, Inc, Courtesy of Savannah Magazine (#1-4); © Celestino Piralla, Courtesy of CSCP Consult LLC (#5). 

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Prefab ADU Think Tank Built in Savannah
2. Bazzèo Used for Preservation Project
3. First Platinum Home Rehab in Georgia