The team at Diseño Earle was kind enough to pass along some info and images of their stunning design of The Eco Home — a knockout that’s aiming to be the first ‘zero carbon’ footprint home in Andalucia, or even Southern Spain for that matter!  D Earle designed the home with two objectives in mind: (1) zero carbon footprint, and (2) reduce operating costs to almost a self-sufficiency level.  The 6995 sf home, which is absolutely enormous, will be built with 75% less waste than a traditional design and operate 80% more efficiently than a similar sized home.  And although the home design was constrained by the narrow, non-flat site, you can tell there was no restraint in creating the ultimate, luxury, green pad. 

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[Update - video no longer available] Pardon the pre-roll on the video below, but the LA Times has some excellent interior / exterior footage of a Marmol Radziner Prefab being constructed in Venice, California.  As you can see, it was put together module-by-module with much of the interior already in place.  Regularly featured on the MR Blog, this house appears to be for Leo Marmol himself and has been referred to as the “Palms House.”  The Palms House is 2800 square feet, made with 13 modules, and includes 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a living room/dining room, kitchen, office, and a spacious deck/outdoor area.

It’s fun watching the video, because you can see Ron Radziner’s enthusiasm bubble inside as he explains one of his company’s newest creations.  These guys are having fun, you can just tell.

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I'm amazed by what can be found on Flickr.  Just in the last couple weeks, someone posted photos of their friend's LVL home by Rocio Romero.  It's quite nice both inside and out.  And we've talked about Rocio Romero prefabs before, including this Napa LV Home and this Arkansas LVL Home, and what's interesting is: how they're customized.  Every Rocio Romero home starts with a primary focus on quality, sustainability, and design — from there, owners tend to add their own personality to the inside and out. 

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Starting at 10:00 am this Saturday, June 14, a custom-made Sunset Breezehouse designed by MKD will be open to the public in Santa Barbara, California.  The open house will happen in conjunction with the Built Green Santa Barbara Expo, Conference, & Tour, but if you’re not able to attend, Michelle Kaufmann has been posting photos and details of the home for the past couple weeks.  The home, in addition to having all the various green materials and products typically used in MKD homes, has a PV solar array and sustainable landscape design that fits the home just perfectly. 

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Back in September 2007, Rice Design Alliance and the Houston Chapter of the AIA announced the 99k House Competition.  The general goal of the competition was to create an innovative design for a small house that is affordable, sustainable, and energy efficient.  More specifically, the competition called for a single family house with up to 1,400 sf of space, including 3 bedrooms, 1.5-2 bathrooms, on a 50′ x 100′ site in a historic neighborhood of Houston.  The construction budget for each home had to be under $99,000, too.

And recently, Hybrid / ORA out of Seattle was declared the winner of the competition (pictured above).  In addition, four other finalists each took $5k in prize money and had their home designs published for all to see.  Make sure to check out their ideas and download their designs below. 

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