KitHAUS makes kit structures like this one with a bolt-together aluminum frame and SIPs floors, walls, and ceiling. With 117 square feet, the kitHAUS K3 is being used on a Shea Homes project in San Diego as a leasing office, though it could easily be used elsewhere as an artist studio or home office. A Halcyon model mini-split from Fujitsu cools the space, which costs about $40k with decks and accessories (but not the mini-split).
K-tect Sustainable Building Systems makes a wall system that the company calls the “newest generation of structural insulated panels.” Although not a sandwich panel, the system is kind of like rSTUD but different and more comprehensive. K-tect includes a light-gauge, metal-stud frame with insulation in a thermally broken assembly (see below) that improves thermal efficiency and controls noise.
SmartHome Cleveland at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History opened for tours earlier this month, making it the only public Passive House in the country. We previewed the ultra-efficient abode a few months back and can now supplement our earlier coverage with these interior and exterior photos.
SmartHome will blend in with its future neighborhood, but don’t be fooled. This home is different than most new and existing homes. This home represents the future of energy-efficient housing and it will be open for visits through the end of this year, 2011.
This new home supports the notion that a Passive House doesn’t need to look a certain way. It turns out that a Passive House (certification pending in this case) can take on a what’s being referred to as a “mission revival style.” Called Menlo Passive, this “Old World,” luxury home was built by California-based Clarum Homes, a builder of high performance custom homes, and is currently listed for sale at the price of $2,695,000.
This is The Boneyard House, a beautiful home in Washington, by architect and builder Dirk Nelson and Free Range Building Company. It’s luxurious and a patchwork of salvaged materials – railroad bridge trestles, crane rails, old mill wooden beams, reclaimed steel light posts, and reused barn and homestead timbers.
There’s some interesting history to this net-zero energy home in Lenado, Colorado. Apparently, a “cranky,” gun-totting squatter named Jack Hogue, or “Lumber Jack,” built a cabin and bathhouse near the top of Woody Creek and took title by adverse possession in the 1990s, after 17 years. Branden Cohen and Deva Shantay of True Nature Healing Arts bought the place from Lumber Jack and improved it, but at 8,650 feet in elevation, it turns out they needed, among other things, a bathroom *in* the home, not out.
