By Katherine LeBlanc, Correspondent

UNITY – Building a new home today comes with a different set of priorities than when our parents built their home in the 50s. “Green” Homes are on the rise, and some say reinventing the wheel – or the home as we should call it – is not easy.

Unity House is an OPEN Prototype Initiative (OPI) home that may just have answers to future homebuilding.

As the new home for Unity College President Mitch Thomashow and his wife, Cindy, Unity House was completed in September. The building will not only serve as the Thomashow’s residence, but will also be used for entertaining and as an on-campus meeting space.
Built on the campus of Unity College, the house is the second home of its type manufactured. “Open_1” was the first home built by OPI in the fall of 2006 in Greenfield, N.H.

One reason the design was chosen was to reflect the college’s environmental commitment.

“Unity House and the OPEN Prototype Initiative embody the principles of Unity College, including environmental leadership, sustainability, and collaborative and experiential learning,” Thomashow said in an e-mailed press release. “We are America’s environmental college, and with Unity House we are proud to be a part of an effort to reframe America’s building industry, making the mass-production of custom, environmentally friendly homes a reality.”

Mark Tardif, associate director of college communications at Unity College said, “Unity House is not a prototype, or an experiment, it is a single family home that produces more energy than it uses – no fuel oil whatsoever – and it is ready to be mass produced nationally right now, not at some date in the future.”

Unity House is constructed of walls that can be moved or removed simply with the use of everyday tools. In typical homes, homeowners would need to tear down walls that are made of sheetrock.

Sheetrock creates large messes that not only must be cleaned, but the waste that needs to be disposed of. By prefabricating homes off-site in a controlled environment, the waste is drastically reduced.

On average when a new home is built the project typically produces 8,000 pounds of on-site waste. The Unity House project produced less than three barrels of waste and on-site construction was completed in 20 working days.

Input for this project was given by Kent Larson of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Larson, director of MIT House_n Research Consortium said, “There are countless examples of green homes, but the industry has not developed a process to affordably mass produce these homes. The OPEN Prototype Initiative has developed scalable processes, such as prefabrication and the separation of core services that, when followed, enable builders to create thousands of customizable Net-Zero homes that are being made more affordable right now.

Net-Zero homes are homes that produce as much energy as they use. Unity House is a 1,930 square foot home that uses photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and will achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum standards.

Jeff McCabe, executive director of Lake George Regional Park and a Unity college alumnus said he was pleased to hear of Unity House being built.

“In general with Unity, it is doing a lot more walking the talk. It is very exciting to watch the college evolve.”

OPI is a program developed by MIT House _n Research Consortium, Bensonwood Homes and other partners.

The architects / designers for Unity House are Hillary Harris and Randall Walter of Bensonwood Homes.

Living Green in Unity House
This blog has been created to spark conversation and answer your questions about the green innovations embedded in the Unity House, the new residence of Unity College President, Mitchell Thomashow and his wife, Cindy. "The Unity House represents the college's commitment to sustainability and green building, and is the first step in the 2020 Master Plan for a fully sustainable campus. We invite you ask a lot of questions."
-Cindy and Mitchell Thomashow

http://www.livinggreeninunityhouse.blogspot.com/