mkLotus Showhouse—Part III - Dwell Blog

Visitors to the mkLotus showhouse, which opened this morning as part of West Coast Green, should really begin their tours by hovering above the house in a helicopter. That's because every inch of the house's 700-square-foot roof has been put to good use, and all in the service of mkd's "good green design" manifesto.

The roof's flat end is sodded and planted with drought-tolerant greenery that provides a thick layer of natural insulation. This aerial garden absorbs and re-channels rain water into a catchment vessel down near the front door. (The vessel, which looks like a soothing water feature, actually serves a very practical function as the house's irrigation reservoir.) The sloped end of the roof, which tilts towards the sun, is sheathed in solar panels that harvest energy for the house's power generator.

This kind of optimization is the Lotus' hallmark, but not every instance of it hails from the cutting edge. In fact, many of the house's efficiencies are borrowed from the old fashioned, tried and true design vernacular of the rural barns that dotted architect Michelle Kaufmann's Iowa childhood. For instance, the house's slated wooden siding requires neither paint nor upkeep. The floor plan opens generously to the outside. High ceilings make the small space breezy and allow heat to rise. The walls and ceiling are pierced with so many windows, skylights, and double-paned glass doors that light fixtures are redundant during the day. (At night residents can play with customized lighting "scenes" in each room courtesy of Home Director and low-energy LED fixtures.)

In keeping with West Coast Green's mandate to educate, the house has been landscaped and staged with the cradle to cradle mission in mind as well, and a tour would be incomplete without some focus on these functional aesthetics. So if you don't have a parcel of land and the roughly $225,000 it would take to install your own mkLotus, there are still many ideas here that can be used to green any home. Everything from the porcelain sink tiles, which are made from recycled toilets, to Lisa Bartleson's paintings, which were crafted with low-VOC pigments and finished with glossy ecoresin, reflects the green mandate.

Check out the slideshow for details, and read Part I and Part II.

View a Slideshow of the mkLotus

Read all of Lisa Brand's posts

Posted by: Lisa Brand on Sep 20, 07 at 02:18 PM PDT