A Personal Journey to a Healthy House

We just moved in! I call it “House 2” because 22 years ago we designed House 1 in our family odyssey in search of a better environment in which to raise our two children. House 1 was all about expanding into a larger space that living in Manhattan had restricted, a 2-bedroom apartment of 1,200 square feet. It worked.

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Getting to Net Zero Energy

The primary lesson for us as architects was that the technology is readily available to model and measure the design of the house before you build it. A healthy, energy efficient, and environmentally responsible house is achievable at a reasonable cost. In the hands of a qualified contractor who understands how to build a highly insulated and airtight house, this is relatively simple to achieve. Therefore, why not all houses or why not your house? Many of the design principles can be transferred to an existing home too.

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Our Passive House: a Sustainable Landscape

Since July of last year, we have also been working on our site to provide an environment that promotes the health of insects and birds. As we are not landscape architects or naturalists, it took months of research and advice from friends and our landscape architect to establish and execute our design. Here are some of the choices we have made.

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