Best Green Houses

Minimize, Then Energize: A two-step process reconciles a house’s large physical footprint with its environmental impact

June 2011 - About the same time that Centerbrook Architects and Planners was wrapping up Kroon Hall—the much-lauded, LEED-Platinum learning facility it had designed with Hopkins Architects for the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale University—the Centerbrook, Connecticut–based firm also was completing Lakewood House. A community-minded academic building and a sumptuous house in a forest setting would seem to have little in common but for their location in greater New England, as well as their extensive use of wood cladding. But according to Centerbrook partner Mark Simon, FAIA, the two structures’ methods for achieving sustainability are quite similar… {continued}