Projects: Green
Staff -- Interior Design, 12/1/2011 2:00:00 AM
Winner: Dennis Wedlick Architect
Project: House
Location: Claverack, New York
Like the mid-century Houses of the Future, this state-of-the-art residence is all-electric. The energy bill, however, is expected to total just $400 a year-a feat made possible by meeting standards set by Germany's Passivhaus Institut. "Our goal was no solar panels, no geothermal, no wind power," Dennis Wedlick says. "The house is very simple." Nevertheless, designing the 1,650-square-foot timber-frame structure required complex computer modeling. After receiving a grant from the state, Wedlick persuaded the Bill Stratton Building Company to take the project on. Most crucial for a passive house, Wedlick explains, is the enclosure. Accordingly, the team inserted 12 inches of insulation beneath the slab and used rigid structural insulation panels for the walls and ceiling. Wedlick's practice has evolved as a result of the project. "We don't talk lightly about construction details anymore," he says. It changed Bill Stratton's life as well. He and his wife now live there.
Merit: Saguez & Partners
Project: Foncier Home
Location: Paris
On a corner a stone's throw from the Opéra Garnier stands a grand 19th-century edifice. It's been owned since the 1930's by the bank Crédit Foncier, which three years ago launched Foncier Home, a real-estate agency that brings in investment experts, lawyers, and the like for consultations with prospective buyers. So creative director Boris Gentine and account director Cécile Poujade made sure the 16,000-square-foot, five-level interior would speak loud and clear about this rather revolutionary mission. Slightly beyond reception, the sales office's enclosure is nicknamed the House of Houses. From the outside, it indeed resembles a house with stained-oak siding-the choice of wood was meant to send an ecological message, as Foncier Home is one of the first renovations of a 19th-century Paris building to obtain France's Haute Qualité Environnementale label. Gentine and Poujade took the domestic analogy further by turning the lounge that wraps the "house" into a "terrace" with outdoor furniture.
Merit: Jessica Helgerson Interior Design
Project: House
Location: Sauvie Island, Oregon
A renovated 1940's bungalow features floorboards of locally harvested white oak, paneling of reclaimed wood, and a roof planted with native moss and ferns.
Merit: Calvert Wright Architecture
Project: DNA Model Management
Location: New York
After some of the 19th-century building's yellow-pine roof joists were removed to make way for a planted courtyard, they were milled into doors and furniture.
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