SPF Zero

edited by Craig Kellogg -- Interior Design, 6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

With even Wal-Mart getting into the game, "green" isn't just for celebrities with hybrid SUVs. Françoise Bollack Architects has proposed wallet-friendly, eco-sensitive apartments for New York's South Bronx. The design—58 apartments, plus 60 studios—received a Green Building award from both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the city's Department of Environmental Protection.

For the south and west facades, Françoise Bollack imagined 4-inch-square photovoltaic cells adhered to high-tech solar glass panels. Besides generating clean electricity, which the nonprofit landlord could sell back to Con Edison, the cells would shade the building's interiors. Bollack calls the idea a "billboard for a new way of life."