Did you know 2 New york city based designers designed an asymmetrical home with fixed funds of $250,000?
Designers and Jersey City residents Richard Garber (assistant professor at New jersy Institute of Technology’s University of Architecture and Design in Newark) and Nicole Robertson of GRO Architects in New York rose to the challenge of creating and managing the building of a single-family house that’s an authentic evidence of both innovative design and environmental-friendly technology.
Denis Carpenter recently bought a compact vacant lot and, to accomplish his interest for the planet, desired a residence that was cost-efficient and very easy to maintain.
What's so special about this home?
- Inside the home, on the floor level, radiant heating below the exposed cement floor gets warm the full bathroom and 2 bedrooms.
- In the attic-like second level, sleek aluminum and stainless steel railings accent the bamboo stairway to the mezzanine, family room and an artfully designed kitchen made with salvaged devices and cabinetry.
- Passive air conditioning strategies like fans and clerestory windows make it easy for owners to be cool during summer months and warm during winter.
- The roof includes 260 feet square of solar panels that deliver approximately 2,000 kilowatts of energy each year to a battery stored in the basement.
- The root have a 2-foot-square area planted with drought-resist to harvest rain .
This single family 1,600-square-foot home was constructed in six months and won a 2009 American Institute of Architects merit award and the 2010 Green Building of the Year Award from the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.
Now what? How can you transform your home into an environmentally-friendly home without spending too much dollars?
If you're remodeling a home, execute an energy audit first to help you determine what energy efficiency advancements should and can be made to your home. In this way you'll calculate how much energy your home consumes.
My favorite eco-friendly method is the passive solar cooling/heating design.
Passive solar usually means that your home's windows, walls, and floors can be developed to collect, store, and distribute solar power in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer.
Existing houses can be adapted or "retrofitted" to passively collect and store solar heat too.
The following 5 elements constitute a complete passive solar home design:
The Collector - The area through which sunlight enters the building (usually windows).
The Absorber - The hard, darkened surface of the storage element. Sunlight hits the surface and is absorbed as heat.
The Thermal Mass - The elements that retain or store the heat generated by sunlight below or behind the absorber surface.
The Distributor - The technique by which solar heat circulates from the collection and storage points to different areas of the house.
The Controller - Roof overhangs may be used to shade the aperture area during warm weather or Thermostats that signal a fan to turn on.
About the writer - Cynthia Booth shares knowledge for the architecture careers advice blog. It's a nonprofit web-site dedicated to provide help for beginning designers who need resources for their careers. With this she would like to increase the consideration on eco-friendly home design and change the general public idea of energy efficiency.
Environmental solutions videos. Environmental solutions, Solutions to CO2 emissions, reducing carbon emissions, reducing the impact on the climate, climate change solutions. Reducing greenhouse gas.
Funding to improve living conditions Tenants Report a report used to help a campaign for funding. This report was used in a successful campaign for funding to improve living conditions on a Council Estate. About the problems that used to exist on the Fordyce Estate, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, England, United Kingdom. Solving poor living and housing conditions. Community Development related.
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