The HouseZero project will turn a wooden home from the ?20s into a model for efficient, affordable green design When architects talk about building more sustainably, the conversation often turns toward new concepts for homes and offices. At Harvard, a group of students and faculty think they can push green design forward by looking back.
The new HouseZero Project, an initiative by the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC), has a lofty goal: creating a new prototype of ultra-efficient building that requires almost zero energy, relies on natural daylighting, and produces no carbon emissions. What makes the concept potentially revolutionary is that it?s based on affordable renovation. By retrofitting and redesigning the program?s offices in a prewar, stick-built home, the CGBC hoping to show how any existing building can become a model of efficiency, and cut emissions without requiring a huge investment. ?In the U.S., most of our building stock has already been built,? says Ali Malkawi, a professor of architectural technology who leads the CGBC program. ?We?re shattering the belief that you need to build new building to be efficient. We want to show how this can be replicated almost anywhere, and solve one of the world?s biggest energy problems, inefficient existing buildings.?

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The HouseZero Project chose a nearly century-old building on Harvard?s campus to prove energy-efficient renovations were possible.

Greening e...