Greenest Homes of 2010

A global race is on to build the greenest, most eco-friendly homes and buildings. Here are 10 landmarks in sustainable residential construction that were started or completed in 2010.

1. The Mini House: Tiny house construction got plenty of attention this year, and we’re not talking dollhouses. People all over the country are building and living in homes that cover well under 1,000 square feet and require very little energy or other resources. A 15-year-old kid in Sonoma County, California, is building a 130-square-foot house, and blogging about his progress. He just finished the roof at the end of November, so he’s not quite ready to move out of the parents’ house yet, but the home is on a trailer bed, so he plans to take it with him to college. He’s using the Fencl design from Tumbleweed, a leader in the tiny house movement. The company estimates a DIYer can build the Fencl for about $23,000, or buy it readymade for $54,000.

2. The Parking Space House: A 39-year-old Japanese man lives with his mother on an even smaller piece of real estate. He built a space- and energy-efficient three-story home on the site of a former parking space. He has large, south-facing windows that let in natural light and passive solar heat while creating an illusion of more space.

3. Whole Trees Homes: Roald Gunderson sees rafters where logging companies see weeds. His company, Whole Trees Architecture and Construction, builds structures out of small, intact trees. This practice is more sustainable for the forest and certainly less wasteful for the planet than milling trees down to standard construction lumber. The company completed at least two homes this year, including the Albertson house, which covers less than 1,000 square feet and includes exterior paneling made from used shipping pallets. 

4. Kelly and Matt’s Net Zero House: It’s one thing to build an ultramodern superstructure that produces more energy than it consumes (known as net-zero energy buildings). It’s another thing to take a drafty, 110-year-old Victorian house with no insulation and turn it into a model of net-zero efficiency — in the frigid Midwest, no less. A couple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, completed a major renovation on what became the oldest net-zero energy home, and the first net-zero home in the state. At the same time, the couple preserved the home’s historic designation under the strict standards of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

5. The Ark House: Overlooking Montana’s Beaver Head National Forest, the Ark House is also designed for net-zero energy usage, but it is certainly more futuristic than historic. It combines a large barn, larger observation deck and home in a 10,000-square-foot structure. Axis Mundi, a high-concept and high-profile New York architectural company, was inspired to simulate “the discovery of an archaic sailing vessel, beached on a mountainside, as if a great ocean receded in the ancient past.” The building is tight, insulated and efficient. It also uses geothermal and solar energy systems, as well as reclaimed oak framing and siding.

6. The Joshua Tree Boulder House: This California structure is the only home on the list currently for sale at just under $1 million. It boasts environmental features while also blending into its environment. The home is hidden under a fake boulder (a real boulder could have been cooler and potentially greener, but we won’t nitpick). The home has radiant floor heating and cooling and low-e windows, as well as a sod roof and low-water landscaping.

7. Haiti Earthships: Earthships have been among the most eco-friendly buildings on the planet for more than 40 years. They are designed with recycled materials to be self-sufficient — with solar and geothermal heating and cooling, solar and wind electricity, contained sewage treatment, water harvesting and food production. This year, the Earthship folks provided valuable disaster relief in earthquake-stricken Haiti. Amid other projects seeing mixed success at best, Earthship is using garbage to build earthquake- and hurricane-resistant buildings.

8. All-American Passive House: We’ve praised the strict efficiency requirements of the German Passive House standard, but also critiqued the boxy and less-than-cozy designs of most Passive House buildings. A great exception is the all-American foursquare in Bethesda, Maryland, which is still under construction, as explained in wonderful detail on this blog. This year also saw the start of New York City’s first Passive House building, a home above a store in the hip Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

9. Roll It: Another great green German innovation is the Roll It house. Students at the University of Karlsruhe worked on an experimental prototype that is part hamster wheel, part modern art and part minimalist housing. By rolling that part of the cylindrical house, tenants instantly transform the bedroom into the living room. A table and chairs, seating area and a bed, for example, all are designed into one segment of the cylinder. The house uses plenty of natural light and is made mainly from eco-friendly laminated oriented strand board panels. Here is plenty of German information about it, and an English summary from a leading architecture blog.

10. Hill End Ecohouse: Finally, green homes don’t need to be miniature, as the Hill End Ecohouse in Brisbane, Australia, showed us this year. The luxury home replaced a 1930s home on the site, but all is forgiven because the new home used 95 percent recycled materials — largely from the former home. It’s also well-insulated and highly energy-efficient. Even the pool is green. It recently won an award for sustainable pools.