LivingHomes is at the forefront of the green building movement, seamlessly blending modern technological production with sustainable building.  The home they built for the technology magazine Wired is the perfect showcase for their prefabricated, eco-friendly luxury homes.  The architect is well known green designer Ray Kappe, FAIA, and is a 4,057 square foot, 5 bedroom, 4 bath home in Crestwood Hills, a high end neighborhood in Los Angeles.  

LivingHomes' creations are always stylishly modern and energy efficient, but what sets them apart from other green builders is their prefabrication process.  Rather than their homes being assembled on site, step-by-step and piece-by-piece, they are made in factories that "ensure unsurpassed quality, lower construction cost and waste, and shorten schedules."  The entire home is not constructed as a whole, but broken up into modules that are manufactured in their entirety in a remote factory and then trucked to the job site in the same manner a mobile home is moved. Then, using cranes and trucks, the modules are joined together on site to create a single residence.  It is a process known as modular constuction, and according to LivingHomes, the method leads to cheaper, faster, higher quality, and less wasteful construction.

However, the Wired LivingHome does not stop there.  To achieve their goal of LEED certification, many more requirements had to be met.  The pre-existing home on site was deconstructed rather than demolished.  It was carefully taken part, and the salvageable materials all reused. Roughly 75% of materials were reusable, and went to organizations such as habitat for humanity to be used in the construction of their homes.

After being assembled, the home was designed to be 36% more energy efficient than a typical home of the same size. Sustainable features include a 4-kilowatt SunPower® solar power system, including high efficiency, all-black SunPower solar panels that generate up to 50 percent more power than conventional panels. The home will also feature a forced hot air radiant heating and cooling system; recycled glass bathroom countertops; Heath ceramic tile in the master bathroom; low-maintenance high-design ecological kitchen cabinetry by Valcucine; an environmentally friendly washer/dryer system that uses less water and energy by Bosch; water-efficient fixtures by TOTO; windows and doors constructed with recycled glass and aluminum by Fleetwood USA; reclaimed redwood by Pacific Heritage Wood who mills the material from old military barracks; FSC-certified exterior siding; tankless water heaters; LED lights that consume less energy than conventional light bulbs; and a carbon off-set for the first year of the home's operation.

The home also includes luxury sustainable furnishings that match the homes modern aesthetic, as well as more practical items like kitchen utensils that are sustainably produced.  And of course, because LivingHomes partnered with Wired, the home also includes some cutting edge technology. The home automation system provided by Control 4 will enable home theater control, smart lighting, temperature control and security to all work together through both in-home and over-the-web remote control technology. The first high-tech feature visitors will experience in the Home is the Panasonic BM-ET330 Iris Reader which uses biometric iris recognition technology to verify identity for entry.  To find out more about the Wired living home go to http://www.wired.com/promo/wiredlivinghome/index.html or visit www.livinghomes.net


Sources used:
    www. livinghomes.net    
    www.wired.com/promo/wiredlivinghome/index.html
    LivingHomes Wired House Press Release