Bensonwood's Unity House Achieves LEED Platinum Status

Unity House, the second home designed and constructed by longtime timber home producer Bensonwood Homes (Unity, ME) as part of the groundbreaking Open Prototype Initiative (OPI), has achieved LEED Platinum designation, the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest rating for environmentally sustainable construction.

“We’re thrilled the Unity House has received the Platinum certification,” said Tedd Benson of Bensonwood Homes. (You can also listen to an interview with Tedd Benson on this site by clicking here.) “There may be only a handful of prefabricated residential homes in the United States that can make this claim, but we don’t think that should be the case. Our goal is to share our techniques with the industry and show others how it can be achieved so that in the coming years, high-performance homebuilding is the norm in housing—not the exception. If Unity House can achieve LEED Platinum status in Maine, imagine how achievable this standard would be in states with more temperate weather.”

Unity House is a first-of-its-kind, Net-Zero home that serves as a living example of sustainable design and construction for the building industry. Built as the home for the president of Unity College, an environmentally focused school in Unity, Maine, the home incorporates a number of design innovations that demonstrate how affordable, environmentally efficient homes can be built using currently available methods and materials.

To achieve this designation, Unity House was scored in a number of areas, from the design process and building materials used, to energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. One of the key design and construction features of the home are Bensonwood’s Open-Built® principles developed from Open Building techniques that separate out the wires, piping, ducting and other mechanical systems. With the mechanical systems disentangled from the structure of the house, they are then easily accessible for future repairs, upgrades, or general remodeling, while creating minimal waste.

Unity House has a number of elements added into its design to ensure sustainable living standards. The 1,930 square foot home is highly insulated, ensuring a tight thermal envelope and its windows provide passive solar heating, which means that, as late as last December, when outside temperatures dropped into the teens, its residents, Mitch and Cindy Thomashow, rarely needed to use energy from the home’s photovoltaic solar panels to heat the home.

“We didn’t have to use the heat pump until mid-November, when it was very cold outside for several days in a row, which is important to homeowners in the Northeast,” said Mitch Thomashow. “Every day we discover some new ‘green’ feature and every day we learn more about how to live sustainably. It’s a great honor to live here.”

Read more about Mitch and Cindy’s experience of living in Unity House on their blog here. ).

Unity House was constructed on a concrete slab to retain heat in the winter and help cool the house in the summer. High-efficiency appliances and low-flow water fixtures were also added. Interior walls can be moved or detached using simple tools, creating new space for its residents.

Bensonwood is currently offering four different Net-Zero capable models in their Unity Collection®, ranging in size, from 994 square feet to just under 2,000 square feet, and in price, from the high $300Ks to the high $500Ks depending on design elements. These prices cover the entire house construction, including the foundation, solar power, solar hot water, all fixtures and appliances. See more here.

“Using alternate energy sources, like solar, wind or geothermal, the Unity Collection® of homes can achieve Net Zero energy usage,” adds Benson. “Even with conventional energy sources such as fossil fuels, electric, or even wood, they can operate for pennies on the dollar and on greatly reduced carbon footprints.”

About the OPEN Prototype Initiative: The OPEN Prototype Initiative is a program of the MIT House_n Research Consortium, Bensonwood Homes and other industry partners. The overarching goal of the initiative is to improve the way homes are built in America, making them more affordable, adaptable, and environmentally friendly while sharing these innovations with the entire industry. The OPI is developing a series of prototype homes to be designed and constructed every 18-24 months. The first prototype, OPEN_1, was completed in the fall of 2006 in Greenfield, New Hampshire. The second house, known as OPEN_2 or Unity House, was assembled on site at Unity, Maine, in the summer of 2008. For more information go to www.openprototype.com.

House_n is a Department of Architecture research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which explores how new technologies, materials, and strategies for design can make possible dynamic, evolving places that respond to the complexities of life. Other major House_n initiatives include The PlaceLab and the Open Source Building Alliance. For more information, click here.

For more than thirty years, Bensonwood has delivered uncompromising quality and innovation in timberframe, hybrid, and high performance building. Winner of PATH’s 2006 Innovative Small Builder of the Year award, Bensonwood is a nationally recognized designer/builder of residential and commercial structures. Through its unique Open-Built® system, Bensonwood has been incorporating advanced technologies and environmentally responsible practices in all its buildings. The entire upcoming season of PBS’s This Old House, 16 episodes in all, will focus on a Bensonwood project.

Unity College is a small environmental college in rural Maine that provides dedicated, engaged students with a liberal arts education that emphasizes the environment and natural resources. Unity College graduates are prepared to be environmental stewards, effective leaders, and responsible citizens through active learning experiences within a supportive community. For more information, go to www.unity.edu.