Laszlo Kiss, an architect in New York City created ASAP - About Saving a Planet - a very affordable modular home, with a pricetag of USD 265 per square foot.
The New York Times, Valerie Cotsalas covered the development: "There are neat design elements that are standard in the house, like the front and back cedar porches totaling 800 square feet and the translucent fiberglass-topped pergola that rises above the roof. But the house is distinctive mostly for its green components: a geothermal heating system and solar panels.
The solar panels, installed on the nearly flat roof, will power the house during the day and feed electricity back into the electrical grid. At night, when there is no sunlight, the house will take power from the grid, drawing from the surplus it supplied earlier.
The geothermal system is predicated on the fact that, below the frost layer (about six feet underground), the earth’s temperature remains relatively constant. Water passing through pipes laid deep underground picks up heat or deposits it before heading back to a heating or cooling device in the house. The system greatly decreases the cost and energy of heating or cooling.
Other energy-efficiency features are also built into the design. The light fixtures, for instance, will accept only energy-efficient bulbs, and five sets of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors in the living room and L-shaped windows in the bedrooms make passive use of the sun’s light and heat."
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