Can Green Homes be Mass Produced?

Accessibility can mean price accessibility and time accessibility. We want to provide both. With the price, because we're starting to increase the volume, it allows us to achieve a lot less waste and lot less time. That translates into financial savings. For me, time accessibility is important as well. If I want to go green, I don't want to have to spend huge amounts of time doing the research to figure out what's really green. It's increasingly fuzzy because people hear all these different messages and different products. We're trying to provide the whole prepackaged green solution. There's a lot of greenwashing going on. Green has become the new black.

Your homes emphasize green features such as living roofs planted with vegetation, lots of windows, bamboo floors, and systems for storing water runoff for irrigation. How much can these homes reduce the environmental footprint of the house?

The only data we have is for our homes like the Glidehouse that I live in. We have a zero energy bill. Our water usage is one third the average person in our neighborhood. We still take hot showers every day, it's just by making smart choices in terms of the fixtures -- on-demand water heater, low-flow shower head, dual flush toilet. We have the data that shows we have 50 to 75 percent less waste in terms of how the home is constructed and built versus the equivalent home built on site. We're able to re-use cut down materials.

You've incorporated some old design principles. You're from Iowa -- have you borrowed from the old fashioned barn?

There is so much to learn from barns. A friend of mine once said it's hard to find a badly designed barn. Barns are designed for function, climate, and trying to find the simplest solutions that maximize the benefits of those things. A lot can be learned from studying barns in terms of cross ventilation and sun shading. Because we have a lot of glass, sun shading is important at different times of the day and different times of the year. Our low tech version, which I love, is putting barn door tracks on the outside of the house and having sliding wood sunshades. They also lock into place so you can have security.

What's it like living in a modular home?

Once it's done, you don't ever know that it was built in a factory. But I would say that what's different about living in a green house is that when we design spaces to really maximize natural light -- a goal with all our homes is to make it so you don't have to turn on lights during the day -- or when we design for cross ventilation, the space also feels good.