Modern Green Affordable Shift Home

By D H on May. 4, 2009 | Topics: Affordable, Modern architecture | 12 Comments

Inspired by the likes of Dwell and the 100k House, Deezine.ca and Shift Development came together with an idea. They thought it would be interesting to have a modern, green, and affordable home designed by an entire community online. Ideas are posted online and the community can make suggestions for changes. Their idea became the Shift Home. You can see how the design has changed in the past few months, but to be clear, this home is not just a thought experiment. Shift Development breaks ground in late-May, or thereabouts.

The Shift Home will be located in Riversdale in Saskatchewan, roughly three blocks from the redevelopment of River Landing. If all goes as planned, the home will be the first LEED Canada for Homes Certified home in Saskatchewan.

The goal is to be affordable to a household income of less than $40k a year.

In addition, the philosophy for green design is to conserve first and use green technology after everything else has been done. Standard green features include a super-insulated envelope, rainwater catchment, heat recovery, triple-glazed windows, a recycling center, dual-flush toilets, and low-flow fixtures. Green upgrades include a green roof, solar thermal, and LED lighting, etc.

The final design for the envelope will be released tomorrow, but help is still needed. The Shift Home needs community insight as to interior and product selections. So get involved …

Article tags: residential

About D H:

http://www.designundersky.com Adam E. Anderson

So glad to see that prefab is reaching affordable levels, quite encouraging.
- Tyler
  
  The home is not going to be prefabricated from what I’ve discussed with Deezine/Shift Development. The look does resemble a prefabricated home though, and could easily be mistook. Perhaps if it is a success, portions of it could become prefab. The problem with that though is that the design/architecture is based more on the site then on the model and part of the vision of this home is that each is unique and not cookie cutter.
tamila

Awesome project! So great that things like this are happening – green conscience, affordable, modern design, community minded – love it! Look forward to following The Shift Home online and seeing the final design & features!
tony

I HAVE SEEN SOME UGLY HOUSES IN MY DAY BUT THAT THING THERE MIGHT JUST BE THE UGLIEST… SOMETHING LIKE THIS CANNOT ADVANCE THE CAUSE OF MODERN GREEN ARCHITECTURE. THIS IS THE SORT OF THING THAT TURNS PEOPLE OFF FROM IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. MODERN ARCHITECTURE – THOUGH IT APPREARS SIMPLE – GIVES YOU LESS ROOM TO HIDE WITH ITS SIMPLICITY OF FORM. PROPORTION, RELATIONSHIPS AND MATERIAL SELECTION BECOME ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT. MODERN + GREEN DOES NOT ALWAYS = GOOD. WHILE IT MAY BE WELL INTENTIONED THIS PROJECT IS JUST PLAIN BAD.
- http://www.jetsongreen.com Preston
  
  Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. By the way, why are you yelling?
Mike M

Personally, I think it looks like a well-appointed bus terminal.
Janae

I also am glad to see that one of the goals with this particular home to “shifting” to something more affordable. I like that the design is edgy- that it is not doing EVERYTHING that has been done before. Projects like this rock–keep up the good work!
tony

…sorry for yelling.

edgy must be another way to say ugly.
- Chris
  
  Some people would look at many traditional Cdn homes and dislike the look. Too often we see huge snout garages with a mismatch of brick and plastic siding. What is attractive is in the eye of the beholder, I like the look of the project although rendering it with more colorful finishes might work better.
http://www.theshifthome.com Daren

Sweet post – thanks for the props JG!
http://www.bluechipearth.com/ HempForPresident

This house is a step in the right direction!! Apparently it’s about $200 a year to heat this home.

Come join the conversation at http://www.bluechipearth.com and share your ideas on a green future! http://www.bluechipearth.com
Tyler

This is no longer the final rendering of the home. The new one has been uploaded and building has already begun on this project.

I personally liked the old design (the one above), however the new one is less ‘prefab’ and more along the lines of a traditional Cdn contemporary duplex.

Take a look on the site for the new rendering and photos.

Modern Green Affordable Shift Home

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