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"From the back, the house that Colorado eco architect Jim Logan designed for a pair of New York City transplants looks like a quartet of identical attached dwellings. &amp;quot;I did an early sketch of an archetypal house shape that was aimed toward the creek and had light coming in through the roof. Basically, it was the same house we all drew in kindergarten,&amp;quot; says Logan, referring to the iconic form of a triangle over a rectangle. &amp;quot;But I knew I couldn&amp;#039;t put 4,000 square feet in just one of them, so I designed four and strung them all together.&amp;quot;  While there was no &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; talk at the outset, when Sean Gallop and Liz Parker hired Logan, having the repeating rooftops ideally situated for concealing solar thermal panels for hot water and photovoltaic (PV) cells to supply electricity made it easier to open that dialogue later. &amp;quot;  We never overtly said this was going to be a zero carbon-footprint house [a building that supplies more energy to the grid than it uses], but environmentally sound architecture is what we do,&amp;quot; says Logan, who started designing solar and low-energy buildings in 1975. &amp;quot;Ultimately Liz and Sean didn&amp;#039;t need much convincing.&amp;quot;  A decade ago the young power couple, intent on living the dream, quit their jobs (she as a corporate lawyer, he as a Wall Street hotshot), abandoned their SoHo loft, jumped in their BMW M3 convertible and went on an extended road trip in search of a new home. After visiting all 67 cities on their list of best places to live, they anointed Boulder as their personal mecca, settling in town for a while before purchasing a pristine acre graced with lush willows, mature cottonwoods and long mountain views.  &amp;quot;The site embodied everything we wanted,&amp;quot; says Gallop, adding that their architectural requests were pretty straightforward. &amp;quot;It had to be one level, and, to the extent possible, we didn&amp;#039;t want the inside to be separated from the outdoors. As for saving energy, we encouraged Jim every step of the way.&amp;quot;  According to Logan, the first step was to do as many things as possible to lower the building&amp;#039;s energy consumption\u2014a concept referred to as &amp;quot;reducing the load.&amp;quot; Logan explains that &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s possible to build a super-efficient home like this one fairly economically by using high levels of insulation and high-quality windows.&amp;quot; He utilized structural insulated panels (SIPs) for the majority of the framing. Unlike typical stud-wall construction, in which thermal bridges allow heat to escape, panel systems create a dense, uniform and continuous air barrier. They also significantly reduce the amount of lumber needed. To further tighten the shell, cellulose insulation was used to seal the big attic spaces in the roof, while shallow spots in the cathedral ceiling were sprayed with Icynene, a product that foams and expands to fill errant cracks.  Intentionally designed on a four-foot grid, the house accommodates a standard SIP length as well as modular-width double Low-E (low-emissivity) windows that help reduce heat loss. &amp;quot;Using standard sizes is more efficient and less wasteful, and the concept also works well architecturally,&amp;quot; says Logan. &amp;quot;The modularity provides a soothing sense of rhythm.&amp;quot; Once the load reduction elements were in place, it was time for solar panels and PVs. &amp;quot;The point is to generate enough energy to run the building and produce some excess,&amp;quot; says Logan. &amp;quot;On bright, sunny days, when your solar panels make more energy than you use, you can sell the excess back to the public service company. On cloudy days, you take power back from the grid.&amp;quot;   Both inside and out, materials were selected for their good looks and longevity. On the exterior, the structural wing walls are clad in brick, while the creek and street faces are covered with ip\u00EA, a Brazilian hardwood. The trellises, which will one day be heavy with trumpet vine, clematis and honeysuckle, are recycled composite deck material made from sawdust and plastic garbage bags. Inside, the soft-maple kitchen and bathroom cabinets\u2014&amp;quot;not typically a cabinet wood,&amp;quot; admits Logan\u2014are fashioned from local trees cut by an area sawmill. &amp;quot;Using a local resource that is normally thrown away is about as sustainable as you can get,&amp;quot; he says.  At the homeowners&amp;#039; request, the central hallway that links the living spaces is defined by wall-to-wall bookcases. &amp;quot;Despite our lawyer/Wall Street lifestyle, we were both English majors in college and we wanted something to commemorate that,&amp;quot; says Gallop. The sanded and black-stained shelves are concrete forms the architect salvaged from a downtown excavation project.  Each of the four pods\u2014&amp;quot;I rigorously kept them all the same size,&amp;quot; says Logan\u2014 houses a separate function. The garage and office are located at one end; the kitchen is next, stationed behind the entry; it is followed by the living room. The bedroom wing fills the final section at the other end. The owners&amp;#039; desire for easy transitions from inside to out is aided by large expanses of glass and a west-facing door in every room. &amp;quot;In the summer, all the doors and windows are left open and being inside feels just like being outside,&amp;quot; says Gallop.  Referencing the original concept of a simple geometric house with light pouring in from the top, Logan incorporated a series of clerestory windows into the roofline and constructed a ceiling screen from area pine-beetle kill (wood taken from trees felled by the marauding insect) that allows natural light to filter through. &amp;quot;There are high cathedral ceilings in every room, and the screen makes the living spaces have more of a human scale as well as creating a sense of indeterminate light,&amp;quot; says Logan, who placed color-balanced fluorescents in the overhead grid to create a pleasing glow at night.  The false ceiling also shields the technical geometry. &amp;quot;There are a lot of different surfaces up there designed to bounce light around, but they are not good-looking, and I didn&amp;#039;t want to have any distractions,&amp;quot; says Logan. &amp;quot;This house isn&amp;#039;t about looking up: it&amp;#039;s about looking out and enjoying the mountains, the forest and the creek.&amp;quot; Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/home-remodeling-renovating/a3916/eco-logical-a-56479/>