The Margarido House has been in the news a lot lately. It's no wonder -- it's virtually certain that the 4,600-square foot Oakland home will be the first in Northern California to win the LEED-H Platinum rating.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
The house is in one of the neighborhoods affected by the 1991 fire. Elements included in the home on Margarido Drive are concrete, steel and aluminum, Heath Ceramics tiles and reused kiln shelves, a living roof, and drought-resistant landscaping.
Click here for Zahid Sardar's article about the Margarido House from yesterday's Chronicle, and here for last Wednesday's.
Images: Melissa Kaseman / Courtesy Mike McDonald
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
This project seems to have offered local designers and fabricators some great opportunities for green innovation that will likely trickle down to more modest construction and renovation. Great! But generally, single family homes of this scale (4,600 sf, aka HUGE) are not good models for sustainable building and resource consumption. This is where LEED ratings become a bit deceptive in my opinion...
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I agree with Snickidy, the size seems really excessive to me. How many kids and dogs are you really going to have? I think we have to remember the word "Reduce" in the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle mantra and come up with creative and clever ways to use our space more efficiently.
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