Inhabitat » green homes

Affordable Housing Made of Recycled Materials

Imagine building your home exclusively of salvaged materials. No re-mixed concretes or FSC-certified woods. Just metals and woods that have been discarded. That’s exactly the kind of home-building Dan Phillips has set out to do through his low-income housing initiative, The Phoenix Commotion. Out to prove that homes can be sound, affordable, and energy-efficient — even aesthetically interesting, Dan is on a mission to build low-cost homes with salvaged materials sourced from unusual places, ranging from flea markets to auto-salvage yards.

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California Desert Home Uses Passive Ventilation Techniques

by Olivia Chen, 07/03/09

Building a home in the desert is certainly a test of green building innovation — because in a climate where resources are limited, how do you build to ensure comfort and longevity? Architect Lloyd Russell offers a beautiful solution with his Austin Residence near Palm Springs, California. Besides its construction out of recycled materials, Russell gave serious consideration to the mechanics of passive ventilation the home during the hot summer months. He was also sensitive to the culture of the surrounding California desert when developing the home’s look-and-feel, creating a contemporary home reminiscent of an old West outpost that captures the essence of desert living.

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Contemporary Seattle Residence Uses Bright Green Fiber Cement

by Olivia Chen, 06/19/09

This brightly-colored home designed by Seattle-based Case Architects opened just a week ago, and was featured earlier on Jetson Green this week. The home’s most notable characteristic is its use of vibrant green CertainTeed Fiber Cement for exterior siding, however, the home is a host to a slew of other eco-friendly techniques such as a green roof balcony, rainwater collection, and radiant heat flooring. With rather un-conventional looks, the home still contains some cozy-looking interiors that we think just about anyone could feel right at home in this sustainably planned and built residence.

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Kaplan Thompson House: Virginia’s First LEED Platinum Home

by Evelyn Lee, 06/15/09

Arlington, Virginia recently received its first LEED Platinum home, which simultaneously holds the honor of Best Single Family Residential Project from the Virginia Sustainable Building Network. A collaboration between Metro Green and Kaplan Thompson Architects, the four bedroom family home and loft merges contemporary architecture with a sustainable footprint that leaves even us totally green with envy.

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Via Torino Renovated Green Loft in Fashionable Milan

There is no doubt that for some, Milan, Italy is synonymous with ultra chic living as a cosmopolitan capital of innovative design and fashion trendsetting. With grand architecture and historic beauty at every corner, there is also a lot to be proud of as Italy’s second largest city. Why would one want to break with design tradition when you have architectural monuments like the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the Duomo di Milano as part of your urbanscape? Enter this first-of-its-kind eco urban residence in the heart of Milan’s fashion district. Sustainably renovated and uniquely energy efficient with its Finnish soapstone fireplace and green rooftop, this eco casa has set new design standards for Milanese city dwellers who are eager to green their views.

Links Roundup of the Week: Keeping Cool

Whew! Summer is definitely just around the corner. We can feel the humidity intensifying with each day in New York City and we know it will only be a matter of time before the heat will really be upon us. With that thought in mind, we thought we would start looking at some ways to keep cool without blasting the air conditioning or using more electricity — and we …

PREFAB FRIDAY: Modularean Eco Prefab Dollhouse!

Every week on Inhabitat, we feature the best and the brightest in green prefab-ulous designs– so when we saw David Baker’s stunning, tiny Modularean House, we were excited to see that the joy of prefab architecture can now be appreciated even by the littlest connoisseurs. This miniature bamboo version of an …

Ellis Residence LEEDs the Way in Puget Sound

As the air warms on Bainbridge Island, construction on the Ellis Residence continues to bring this state-of-the-art sustainable home even closer to its expected LEED Platinum rating. Designed by Coates Design, the Ellis Residence will be the first single-family residence in the Western Puget Sound region to attain this level of environmental building achievement.

PREFAB FRIDAY: $75,000 Clayton “I-house”

We love this prefab home because it’s extremely energy efficient and affordable coming in at under $75,000 for the smaller model and under $94,000 for the larger model. Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturers of mobile homes in the U.S., recently released this high tech green home that is far removed from your standard trailer park dwelling.

Inhabitat Blog Picks of the Week

The new year is the perfect time to reflect on some of the crazy and exciting accomplishments of the past year– and to think about the future. As you might have noticed this past week, we’ve been pondering our favorite stories we’ve run this year, how we could be more eco-conscious in 2009, and where 2009 might bring us in becoming a greener and cleaner planet. And …

PREFAB FRIDAY: Blu Homes

Blu Homes is a relative newcomer to the prefab design world. That being said, they are in the midst of two projects that should be completed by Spring 2009. One is in Blue River, Colorado and the other is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Blu Homes focuses on more than good contemporary and energy efficient design. With a Blu Home, you’ll get a fun and beautiful design, but you’ll also get walked through the whole process from site evaluation, permitting, financing, design, site work all the way through construction and finishing the home. And you’ll know the price right from the start because it’s a package deal. Not many other prefab builders offer that service, especially at the affordable price they’re guaranteeing on their website.

PREFAB FRIDAY: The KitHAUS K4 Green Home

KitHAUS modular homes have a breezy backyard feel to them– perfect as a guest house or studio in a lush area of your yard. We’ve covered KitHAUS modular homes before on Inhabitat: here and here. Early models such as the K1 and K2 were aluminum-clad with high ceilings and tall windows. However, the latest KitHaus models, K3 and K4, have beautiful wooden louvers and a bit of a smaller footprint. With an updated look and new add-on options from the K4, a couple in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was able to create a lush atmosphere by simply adding some decking and potted plants.

Habitat For Humanity & Drury University LEED Platinum Home

Habitat for Humanity recently announced their first LEED Platinum house in conjunction with students and professors at Drury University’s Hammons School of Architecture in Springfield, Missouri. That’s quite the achievement for the self-titled Drury University Sustainable Habitat House, since there’s only 44 houses in the nation that have achieved LEED Platinum. The newly certified residence is located in Habitat’s for Humanity’s Legacy Trials subdivision north of Springfield, but they are looking to incorporate similar affordable green homes on a national scale.

BEDZED: Beddington Zero Energy Development in London

The Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) may not be new news, but is a fabulous example of innovative, zero-energy, sustainable housing on a multi-unit scale. The residential and workspace development in the London borough of Sutton is a carbon-neutral community with plentiful green spaces, recycling facilities, water saving features, and a legally binding green transport plan. It’s the whole kit-and-caboodle of sustainable living, and has been a flourishing green community since its conception in 2002.

Project7Ten Green House Completed in LA

Southern California is adding to its growing collection of uber-green LEED Platinum homes with the recent completion of the Project7Ten House. While the original renderings of this design looked promising, nothing inspires us more than seeing green buildings actually get built. The photographs of this recently constructed green house far surpass the original renderings we saw a few months back, and we are thrilled to see such an elegant eco-house for sale in LA.

GREAT GREEN HOME: Carter Burton Yoga Studio

What yoga does for the mind and soul, this thoughtfully-designed yoga studio does for its lucky green-minded inhabitants. Situated outside Washington DC in Clark County, Virginia, and designed by Carter + Burton Architecture, the small scale structure serves as a yoga studio and guest house for Annie and Paul Mahon’s main house 100 feet away. Despite its compact 600 square foot footprint, the studio packs in the best of the best of green technologies, from SIP-based construction to geothermal, passive solar, locally-sourced materials, green roof, and LED lighting. The clients’ and designers’ commitment to sustainability earned the project a LEED Gold certification when it was completed in 2007.