Green House

Green House

Green Home to be Cornerstone of Long Island Alternative Energy Park

Mon

Aug

In 2005, the 800-square-foot OPEN House was conceived and constructed by 75 students at Old Westbury, Long Island's New York Institute of Technology. Made from wood, the house debuted at the 2005 Solar Decathlon and took home fifth place as a fully operational showcase for solar and hydrogen fuel cell technology. In 2007, it was re-entered in the Decathlon with a few upgrades, including an array of 35 solar panels and a rooftop pool for heating and cooling, which was designed to simulate the heating and cooling principles of a geothermal system. The prototype included a performance dashboard displaying the home's energy consumption in real-time. Although the prototype cost $400,000.00 to construct, at the time students believed that a similar home could be mass-produced for around half of that amount.

Suburban Green: Swell House in Highland Park, New Jersey

Fri

Apr

by Stephen Del Percio

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The theme for Architectural Record’s compilation of its 2008 Record Houses was sustainability, and the magazine stuck with green for its web-only Unbuilt Houses feature that was released earlier this week. One local project made the list- the Swell House in Highland Park, New Jersey, designed by New York City-based Studio ST Architects and Z-A. The $400,000 addition will raise the total square footage of the house from an original 900 square feet to 1900, though it’s unclear how far along, if at all, construction has proceeded. The design concept for the home stresses the intersection- and indeed mutation- of old and new living space while acknowledging the site’s local topography, which is just to the east of New Brunswick. A major thrust of the Swell House is the architects’ investigation of "the properties of the most mundane suburban cladding material- the clapboard," which is used in a variety of functional ways.