Every year since 1984, a special showcase home has been built in conjunction with the International Builders' Show, the nation's largest trade show focused on home construction. The home is called The New American Home, and its builder has a pretty tall order to fill.

The home is essentially a showcase of new products, systems and practices. Literally thousands of Builders' Show attendees stop by, many of whom are homebuilders from around the country looking for new ideas. Yet this showcase must also be a real home that the builder, who ultimately holds financial responsibility, must sell. As such, the home is more than just a big science project of gee-wiz technology.

"Our No. 1 goal was that we didn't want it to look like a laboratory," says Maylen Dominguez, new development coordinator with Homes by Carmen Dominguez, the Orlando-based builder of the 2007 version of The New American Home, which was officially unveiled in January in conjunction with this year's Builders' Show.

In that regard, the builder has succeeded, for in many ways the home's design and aesthetics are more attention-grabbing than its green and efficient underpinnings, at least at first glance. In fact, as one walks through the home, there is little or no visual evidence that this home is in any way a laboratory for sustainable building. Instead, it is a visually impressive structure, both inside and out, with intriguing features at every turn. It is only when one takes a closer, more in-depth look that the home's true nature comes through.

The Upside-Down House

The New American Home is located on an urban infill lot just a short walking distance from downtown Orlando, in an area known as the Lake Eola Heights Historic District. To create the space for the home, the local historic preservation requirements prevented the demolition of a historic house already located on the property. So instead the building team lifted and side-shifted the existing house, built in 1909, to one side of the oversized corner lot. This moved house was rebuilt as part of the effort and ultimately became something new as well: the Renewed American Home.

Built in a contemporary Craftsman style, The New American Home is a three-story structure with a flat roof, a shallow basement, angled exterior wood posts, a third-floor garden terrace and a detached garage. It's certainly visually striking from the outside, with its earth-colored fiber cement and stucco exterior, and 4-foot roof overhangs shading the windows from the hot Florida sun.

But one of the more inventive twists takes place inside, since the home's living spaces are essentially upside-down. To take advantage of city views as well as natural light during the day and cooling breezes in the evening, the home's primary living space - a great room that includes the kitchen, dining area and living room, which opens onto the terrace via a retractable sliding glass wall - is located on the home's top floor. The master bedroom, as well as a lounge and gallery, is on the second floor, while two secondary bedrooms, an office, a home theater and a mudroom are all located on the ground floor.

Innovative, energy-efficient and sustainable materials were used throughout, but were incorporated into the home so well they're barely noticeable. A waterproof membrane in the basement prevents the intrusion of moisture, while Icynene spray foam insulation was used in the walls and ceiling to minimize air infiltration and improve the home's thermal performance. Fluorescent and low-voltage lighting help keep energy requirements low. The dishwasher, refrigerator and clothes dryer are Energy Star models from Whirlpool. And that's just the beginning.

Efficient to the Core

The entire shell of the house was carefully designed to passively save as much energy as possible. Beneath its stylish exterior, the house at its core is energy efficient, thanks to being made mostly of precast insulated concrete panels attached to steel framing.

While less forgiving of adjustments than wood or concrete block and thus requiring more upfront planning, the precast concrete panels, which have an R-value of 26, assemble in about one-third the time of block, provide better soundproofing and are more resistant to heating or cooling loss. Another benefit of using precast concrete is the ability to create thin floor systems. Compared to using traditional wood framing, the 6-inch-thick concrete "planks" used here provide six extra inches of interior space for taller ceilings.

Always a key area for saving energy is with a home's windows. The New American Home's fixed, casement and double-hung windows, as well as the hinged and gliding patio doors, are manufactured by Anderson. Fitted with the company's proprietary low-E4 glass, they are, on average, 41 percent more energy efficient in the summer and 35 percent more energy efficient in the winter than standard dual-pane glass windows.

Heating and cooling is provided by three high-efficiency units, which are strategically placed throughout the home's 4,707 square feet of living space. The first and second floors, as well as the basement, are served by two air-source heat pumps, while a gas/electric unit serves the third floor. And to further save energy, ducts are made of sealed fiberglass sections that are located within the conditioned spaces.

Rooftop Solar

Solar plays a big part in The New American Home. The design for both solar energy and solar water-heating systems was guided by the Cocoa, Fla.-based Florida Solar Energy Center. To save on electric costs, a 2.4-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system is mounted on the roof. Its 2-by-4-foot panels create enough electricity to reduce the home's electrical use by an average of 9 kilowatt hours per day and boost the home's overall energy savings by 16 percent.

In addition, a roof-mounted solar collector pre-heats water for domestic use. The solar pre-heated water flows to Rinnai instant (tankless) natural-gas water heaters, which provide up to 8.5 gallons of hot water per minute. The water heaters are located close to the place of use, minimizing the amount of piping needed.

It's probably no surprise that the latest in low-voltage electronic controls for both ease of living and efficiency are an integral part of The New American Home. The installed systems include lighting controls, a security system and a complete audio/video network system, with a full array of DVD, CD and satellite video available in all rooms. The system is controlled through a network of on-wall keypads and touch screens with built-in color monitors.

A Closer Look

A tour of The New American House certainly yields plenty to see, but the real discoveries come only when you take the time to look a little closer. For instance, a residential-scale elevator from ThyssenKrupp provides transport to all three living areas, enabling the owners to carry groceries to the upper floors from the garage and mudroom, while also mitigating any accessibility issues for residents or visitors.

Open stairways allow light into interior areas of the home. The interior concrete walls have been stained to give them a contemporary yet lived-in look. Decorated fabric panels over the windows serve as blinds that can be raised or lowered to control the amount of sun's heat that reaches the home's interior. Of course, they also provide privacy when required.

In a move more reminiscent of much older building techniques, the house has a rain catchment system and cistern. A green roof catches and filters rainwater for later use in landscaping. The rainwater is stored in a concrete tank beneath the concrete slab floor of the detached garage. Pumps for the system, as well as other mechanical systems, are situated in the home's unfinished basement.

In the kitchen, the drawers are equipped with catches that automatically close them fully after a gentle push (not efficient or green, just very cool). Stepping out of the living room onto the third-floor terrace, one first notices that the terrace is carpeted in green grass; a closer look and feel reveals that it's not grass but artificial turf, so no watering is necessary. The same holds true for the turf around the outside lap pool, which is located between the home and the detached garage.

Cascading into the pool is a rain curtain, which, like many features in the home, serves a dual purpose. It not only provides a soothing sound, but also helps mask street noise. Even the driveway is green, since it's composed not of heat-absorbing asphalt but of shredded recycled rubber. You'd never know by looking at it, but of course that's the point.

Matthew Phair has been working on houses for almost three decades and writing about them for two decades. He's worked as a professional carpenter as well as on the editorial staff of several construction magazines. He's based in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.