This ultra-efficient home is repaying owner Scott Shackleton with money from putting excess electricity into the grid. Located on a narrow lot in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, the shotgun-style home generates nearly two-times the electricity it uses with a 4.7 kW solar array on the roof. That plus about 85% of domestic water is pre-heated with solar thermal, resulting in more energy savings.
This year’s HGTV Green Home is in the popular Stapleton infill development of Denver, Colorado. The New Urbanist community features nothing but Energy Star homes that are about 30% more energy efficient than standard homes and 20% more water efficient than typical Denver households. But the HGTV Green Home 2011 steps things up a notch with a LEED Platinum certified project — it’s one of about 40 in the state.
This home is officially the first Passive House in North Carolina. It’s also the first Passive House in the country built out of concrete, according to Chris Senior, certified Passive House consultant and owner of Anchorage Building Corp., the builder. Senior said his company was able to keep construction costs “surprisingly reasonable” by fashioning the entire exterior from concrete.
Art Stable is an award-winning project in the Cascade neighborhood of South Lake Union in Seattle. Designed by Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig Architects and developed by Point32, Art Stable includes ground-floor commercial and six live-work lofts (of which only two remain on the market). The project was built on an urban infill site — formerly a horse stable — and cleverly incorporates some of its work-ranch history in the design.
This is R-House, a recently built prototype home in Syracuse that is pursuing both Passive House and LEED certification. It was recently honored with a 2011 AIA Housing Award, and one of the jurors said the 1,100 square-foot home presents “A new slant on sustainability!“ R-House was designed in partnership by Della Valle Bernheimer and Architecture Research Office and is an interesting case study for the next generation of smaller, greener, ultra-low energy homes.
Project Profiles
