Five Impressive Eco-Homes

Eco Arch, Kent: Sufficiently impressive to earn a spot on Channel 4’s Grand Designs, Eco Arch is a family home characterized by its enormous parabolic roof, curving like a bridge over the futuristic glass living area. Made with thousands of ceramic tiles, this highly-insulated roof design is one of the home’s main eco-properties. To add to its environmental credentials, the roof is covered in green turf, providing extra insulation as well as habitat for birds and insects, while the large South-facing windows encourage passive solar heating.

Elfin Hollow, Turnbridge Wells

With a name that sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings, Elfin Hollow curiously manages to combine the nostalgic with the unapologetic ally modern. With wooden beams, stylish landscaping, a balcony area and courtyard, Elfin Hollow looks part Tudor, part hotel. Using traditional building methods and state-of-the-art technology, this property maximizes energy conservation using insulated panels, eco flooring solutions, solar PV panels, triple glazing, an air circulating system with heat exchange, and by collecting rainwater.

Woodman’s Cottage, Sussex

This next property, another veteran of Grand Designs, is an eco-home build entirely out of local wood. Tucked away in the middle of a chestnut forest, it is easy to imagine Woodman’s Cottage being inhabited by fairy tale characters, or even that this is the ‘crooked house’ from the nursery rhyme. But don’t let its ramshackle appearance fool you – Woodman’s Cottage is carefully designed by its builder/resident to enhance insulation, and the wooden frame is stuffed with recycled newspaper and straw, coated in air-tight clay and lime plaster.

Dome House, Japan

Is this the house of the future? Well-insulated and made of high-tech Styrofoam, the home’s igloo-shape makes it resistant to earthquakes and typhoons, promising to save residents money not only on their energy bills, but also on repairs caused by these disasters. Similarly shaped eco-homes have been built using local earth by the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture. The benefit of these properties is that they are quick to build, and can stand alone or be easily joined together.

Longbow Place, Colorado

If skeptics still need convincing about the money-saving power of eco-homes, Longbow Place is it: highly-insulated with an array of solar PV panels and eco flooring solutions, this property offers sustainable and affordable living in the long-term, ideal for larger families. Spanning 10,000 square feet with a private lake for a pond, amazingly this enormous house costs its owners just $400 dollars per month in energy bills.

Vikki works alongside a company specializing in environmentally friendly industrial flooring to help businesses up their green credentials!