2011 Grand Award- Custom Home 3,000 to 5,000 square feet
Macy A…
2011 Grand Award- Custom Home 3,000 to 5,000 square feet
Macy Architecture / Jensen & Macy Architects, San Francisco
Plenty of decks and overhangs protect the Sustainable Steel Home from the hot San Diego sun. The house maximizes its infill location by providing city and water views to the main rooms, which all occupy the second floor. Photovoltaics produce on-site power, and rainwater harvesting meets the site's irrigation needs. Lots of glass, both transparent and translucent, helps with daylighting and passive solar.
Scot Conti
Wood-and-resin panels form an exterior rainscreen.
Scot Conti
A view terrace above the garage connects back to the main house …
A view terrace above the garage connects back to the main house via a glass bridge crossing over the courtyard.
Scot Conti
A cantilevered deck juts out to shade the entry patio.
Scot Conti
A view across the atrium and into the master bedroom. Architect …
A view across the atrium and into the master bedroom. Architect Mark Macy placed the home's major rooms on the top floor.
Scot Conti
The living room takes in a view of the Pacific Ocean.
Scot Conti
A covered entry pavilion provides a dramatic transition from the…
A covered entry pavilion provides a dramatic transition from the street to the house.
courtesy Mark Macy
A site plan of the house.
Jeffrey Jacobs
2011 Grand Award – Accessory Building
Cape Russell Retreat, Sha…
2011 Grand Award – Accessory Building
Cape Russell Retreat, Sharps Chapel, Tenn.
Sanders Pace Architecture, Knoxville, Tenn.
This lakefront retreat employs off-the-shelf materials to sophisticated effect. A rooftop photovoltaic panel charges a bank of batteries, housed inside the bench, which powers the lights, refrigerator, and ceiling fans. A 400-gallon cistern stores rainwater harvested from the butterfly roof.
Jeffrey Jacobs
Located upstream from a hydroelectric dam, the building was desi…
Located upstream from a hydroelectric dam, the building was designed to let high water flow through.
Jeffrey Jacobs
Walls of spaced cedar 2x4s were shop fabricated and trucked to t…
Walls of spaced cedar 2x4s were shop fabricated and trucked to the site for quick assembly.
Brandon Pace
The floor plan and a view of the building from the lake.
Brandon Pace
Elevations and building section.
Todd Lanning
Merit Award – Custom Home / 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet
GREENvil…
Merit Award – Custom Home / 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet
GREENville House, Greenville, N.C.
Tonic Design, Raleigh, N.C.
This LEED Silver-rated North Carolina house takes a contemporary approach to integrating architecture and sustainability. Aluminum rooftop “trays” provide integrated mounting for photovoltaic and solar thermal panels, turning down at the roof's edge to shade the windows. The house's low-maintenance shell combines brick-, red cedar-, and zinc-clad forms in an interlocking composition.
Todd Lanning
Long, narrow wings pinwheel out from the house's two-story core,…
Long, narrow wings pinwheel out from the house's two-story core, maximizing the exposure of windows and rooftop solar panels.
Courtesy Tonic Design
The house earned a LEED for Homes Silver rating and qualified un…
The house earned a LEED for Homes Silver rating and qualified under the Energy Star and EPA Indoor Air Plus programs.
Photos: Todd Lanning
Rooftop "trays" constitute both mounting brackets for solar pane…
Rooftop "trays" constitute both mounting brackets for solar panels and shading devices for windows.
Todd Lanning
Todd Lanning
Clerestory glazing emphasizes the height of the living area.
Todd Lanning
Views of the kitchen and dining areas.
Paul Hultberg Photography
Paul Hultberg Photography
A center-sloping butterfly roof facilitates rainwater catchment …
A center-sloping butterfly roof facilitates rainwater catchment while serving as a mounting platform for the house's photovoltaic array.
Paul Hultberg Photography
The steel structural frame allows an open interior for natural l…
The steel structural frame allows an open interior for natural light and ventilation.
Paul Hultberg Photography
The roof tops a continuous glazed clerestory.
Paul Hultberg Photography
The kitchen cabinets are zero-VOC MDF made from recycled wood. …
The kitchen cabinets are zero-VOC MDF made from recycled wood. Counters are recycled glass in a high-fly ash matrix.
Paul Hultberg Photography
The dining area. Wood flooring throughout the house is locally s…
The dining area. Wood flooring throughout the house is locally salvaged heart pine.
Paul Hultberg Photography
The master bedroom opens onto a large covered deck.
Courtesy Robert M. Cain
Building sections showing heat, ventilation, and rainwater colle…
Building sections showing heat, ventilation, and rainwater collection.
Bruce Damonte
Grand Award – Custom Home / 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet
Laidley …
Grand Award – Custom Home / 3,000 to 5,000 Square Feet
Laidley Street Residence, San Francisco
Zack / de Vito Architecture, San Francisco
Panelization as the primary construction method cuts down on construction waste, but that was just one aspect of the firm's environmental strategy. It employed green materials, such as blown-in cellulose insulation and sustainably harvested palmwood flooring, and the building produces much of its own energy through rooftop photovoltaic panels and solar hot water. The translucent central staircase distributes light throughout all three floors.
Bruce Damonte
Postcard views of San Francisco serve as the living room's main …
Postcard views of San Francisco serve as the living room's main decoration.
Bruce Damonte
The stainless steel island refelcts the natural light deeper int…
The stainless steel island refelcts the natural light deeper into the long, narrow foot print.
Bruce Damonte
A skylight and oversized, commercial-style windows at either end…
A skylight and oversized, commercial-style windows at either end of the top level also usher in natural illumination.
Timothy Hursley
Grand Award – Custom Home / Less Than 3,000 Square Feet
Strickl…
Grand Award – Custom Home / Less Than 3,000 Square Feet
Strickland-Ferris Residence, Raleigh, N.C.
Frank Harmon Architect, Raleigh
According to the home's architect, Frank Harmon, lifting it up was the surest way to minimize disturbance to the steeply sloped site. A butterfly roof channels the flow of rainwater off the house. Deep overhangs work with the mature trees outside to shade the dramatic, glass-walled main living space.
Jeffrey Jacobs
Deep overhangs work with the mature trees outside to shade the d…
Deep overhangs work with the mature trees outside to shade the dramatic, glass-walled main living space.
Green design and construction continue to gain momentum in the housing industry. Once niche fields, incorporating sustainability into the thought process of creating a custom home is now common practice. Increasingly homeowners feel that healthy, environmentally friendly, low-maintenance, and energy-efficient houses make for a better quality of life. This trend, coupled with the fact that sustainable design has become a popular marketing tool, means that a higher percentage of the entries into our annual Custom Home Design Awards (CHDA) program are green in some (or many) ways.
In the attached slideshow we highlight several past CHDA winners that make solar orientation, sustainable materials, and products a priority. These award-winning designs feature green attributes that often helped them make it through several elimination rounds to land in the final selection pile. Many of the projects use alternative energy sources such as solar or geothermal, some recycle rainwater runoff for irrigation, most take maximum advantage of free resources like daylighting and natural ventilation, and all use nontoxic, renewable, and durable materials, in compelling ways.
