The Art Deco home situated on a Colonial Lane property in Palm Beach, and designed by architect Jacqueline Albarran recently received the LEED Platinum certification. The home was completed in November 2013, and took two years to build. This home is the first in the Palm Beach area to receive this, highest LEED certification. The building team consisted of architect Albarran, as well as the local contractor Tim Givens and Kyle Abney, a Palm City-based LEED consultant.

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Living in a tiny house doesn’t necessarily equal sacrificing comfort, at least not according to work-at-home husband and wife team Andrew and Gabriella Morrison. Their 221 square foot home, which is dubbed hOMe, is designed in a way that maximizes each part of the living space, giving the appearance of being a much larger hose than it is. The home greatly resembles a shipping container from the outside due to its shape, and is only 8 feet and 6 inches wide.

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Ray Armstrong’s mountain home in Colorado Springs is a sprawling 5,500 square foot structure, with the living space extending outdoors where the owner’s fish ponds and water gardens are located. Armstrong is an award-winning koi fish enthusiast, and his home uses even more energy since the ponds and tanks, where his fish are, require precise temperature and water regulation. Since such a large home also consumes vast amounts of energy, Armstrong enlisted the help of David Bednarski, owner of Bestway Mechanical in Colorado Springs, to help him install the necessary solar and other technologies to reduce this footprint.

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The La Jolla, CA home of Jill and Jack Nooren recently received the highest LEED certification awarded to homes, LEED Platinum. The home took three years to build and is a true example of energy efficiency, sustainability and design. The house was designed by domusstudio architecture and built by the Hill Construction Company. The 2,350-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath home also won a 2013 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Merit Award for its innovative mild-climate building and design approach, which brings together outdoor and indoor spaces seamlessly.

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Alek Lisefski, a 29-year old freelancer designed and built his own tiny home in 2012, after deciding that paying a high rent was just not a viable option. The tiny home he built rests on an 8-by-20 flatbed trailer and can be towed around the country as necessary, or desired. He designed the house using the 3-D modeling program SketchUp, some books on the subject, and a number of tutorials off the internet. It took Lisefski 7 months to design and build the home, and it is currently located in Sebastopol, California. He lives there with his girlfriend, Anjali Krystofiak, and their dog.

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Solar ovens are a great way to cook sustainably, but they have the drawback of not working very well on cloudy days. However, the new SunFocus solar hybrid oven, made by Sun BD Corporation, takes care of that problem. And what’s more, you can even use this oven to cook at night. This is possible because the SunFocus oven has a hybrid solar and electric system, with the latter taking over once the sun sets or hides behind the clouds.

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