The Ultimate Value Home
While the overall housing market remains sluggish across much of the country, builders are turning to products and systems that will give them an inch up on the competition until the market corrects itself. Basically, in terms of products and construction practices, anything green goes. But the Next...
The 21st Century Victorian Home
The driveway curls through the New Hampshire woods. As you near its end, the home’s Folk Victorian details come into focus — delicate trim along the top of two gabled dormers, carefully detailed pediments above windows and more accenting trim atop the porch rails.But peel off the...
Florida Natural
Builder J.P. McClellan, based on Amelia Island in northeast Florida, recently completed construction on the first eco-friendly, Energy Star certified residence at the Amelia Park development, where he has overseen construction of more than 200 homes since the community’s founding 10 years ago....
Sustainable in the City
Three years ago, Seattle-based builder and remodeler Sloan Ritchie founded Cascade Built, a green construction company, with the goal of creating contemporary, sustainable urban homes. After completing a town home project that was one of the first in the country to achieve Silver level certification...
A Minneapolis Green Remodel
Peter Lytle has always been interested in sustainable building. While growing up in the 1950s, he was inspired by the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. More recently, he founded Live Green Live Smart, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based educational organization that promotes green building practice...
Portland's Floating Solar Home
When my wife Kathryn and I decided to build our next home, we had a number of design objectives. Our primary goal was to build a home that would come as close as practical to net-zero energy performance. Net-zero is the concept that a home produces as much energy as it consumes. The vast majority of...
Growing a Green Home
Linda Lessner describes herself, her husband Michael and their four children as “central Austin folk.” And being that green building has been central to Austin for more than 20 years, it’s little surprise that the Lessner’s home is in all probability the greenest one on ...
The New American Home
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 esse...
The New Southern Home
Preempting an initiative proposed recently by Florida governor Charlie Crist to increase the energy efficiency of new homes built in the state by 15 percent, the New Southern Home in Orlando goes beyond efficiency. At a whopping 12,200 square feet, the showcase house may seem to contradict many gree...
The Solar Umbrella
How do you turn a vintage Spanish-style bungalow in the design-savvy beach community of Venice, Calif., into a decidedly up-to-date family retreat? Quite simply, by looking to the past while incorporating the most innovative building techniques of the present. That's what homeowners and ...
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