EcoHouse Showcases

A green demonstration home near Seattle, Washington, that showcases energy efficiency, healthy indoor air quality, water conservation, green building practices, sustainably produced materials, and natural landscaping. The site provides information on how the home was designed and constructed, as well as how it performs.

Thornhill ecohouse is a three bedroom family house that was designed to be beautiful and comfortable to live in but which was as compatible with sustainable living as we could make it. We wanted to reduce our impact on the planet while enhancing quality of life and biodiversity.

The Hockerton Housing Project is the UK’s first earth sheltered, self-sufficient ecological housing development. Project members live a holistic way of life in harmony with the environment, in which all ecological impacts have been considered and accounted for. The residents of the five houses generate their own clean energy, harvest their own water and recycle waste materials causing no pollution or carbon dioxide emissions.

Partially earth-sheltered self-built home. This house was made to house our family whilst we worked in the woodland surrounding the house doing ecological woodland management and setting up a forest garden, things that would have been impossible had we had to pay a regular rent or mortgage.

This short view of an “off the grid” home provides inspiration that we can integrate creativity, simplicity and reliable technology into our modern living spaces. During a video shoot for a solar energy documentary, Peter Walker discovered Ken Anderson from Edge Architects, an architect design firm which has intelligently integrated both high and low tech systems.

See how a house is really built out of straw these days! Designed for complete energy efficiency, these straw bale homes are in Crestone, Colorado.

A live-in research laboratory, this 6,000 gsf residence hall serves as a testing ground for smart and sustainable technologies. Initially developed by a student as a senior thesis, the Smart Home Program has evolved to include the participation of over 450 students.

A ground breaking demonstration development designed to give a glimpse of how the future delivery of sustainable buildings and communities can be achieved not only in the UK but around the world. It features seven of the world’s most sustainable houses (built to the Code for sustainable homes), a health centre of the future and over 300 different construction innovations and emerging technologies as well as a state of the art community landscape design.

Since 1997, every year, the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) invites electronic submission of built eco projects.

In 1998 the Florida Solar Energy Center began its Zero Energy Homes research program in collaboration with the City of Lakeland municipal utility and builder Rick Strawbridge. Two homes, one the builder’s standard model (the Control) and the other a super-energy-efficient photovoltaic residence (PVRES), were constructed and tested on a side-by-side basis for more than a year.

Unbiased solar electricity & hot water, efficient appliances, wetback, sustainable material advise – tour the Solar Energy House, Meadowbank, Auckland.

Monolithic dome house with passive solar energy. Thin-shell concrete structure.

Showcase site by the owner of this passive solar house that features earth shelter design, geothermal exchange, and energy recycling. Includes plans, documents the construction and explains the efficiency of the design.

Natural cooling and heating system. Windmill electricity generation. Nature friendly material use. Rain water use. Solar energy collection. Compost heat use. Methane gas from the septic tank. Cleansing ponds with photosynthesis.