Green Building

If you'd like to learn a little about popular architectural styles and how they fit in your vernacular, here's a short run down.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, it's time to display your green with pride! Let's take a look at who is building green and what green innovations they are using. Which States are the Greenest States? What Green Building Innovations are Most Common?

Daylight savings time is almost upon us, and that means a few things for the staff here at AMDA. None of us are particularly thrilled with the idea of losing an hour of sleep, but on the bright side, this is the perfect time to think about springtime and sunshine! :)

Which green improvements will increase your enjoyment while also maximizing your home’s value? Find out which updates are best for your home plan.

Net zero homes are not merely a thing of the future; indeed, any house can be transformed into a net zero home with some investment and advanced energy technology. Find out more!

Learn more about the many advantages of green guest house plans, like durability, cost savings and much more.

For eco-friendly homeowners, green living is a way of life. For those looking for green house plans, here’s how to build a sustainable house design with minimal carbon footprint.

If you like to live green, consider including eco-friendly features into a custom home design. Here are the top features to include in green house plans.

If you're considering going green with sustainable house design, here are the common features of green house plans.

Concerning environmental standards, the sustainable home design field has an effective system for rating green house plans: LEED certification. Here are the benefits.

When evaluating systems to incorporate into your green home, it is easy to get caught up in direct cost comparisons of similar products. For instance, it is easy to compare the costs of an 80% and 90% efficient gas furnace. There are up-front costs, and then there are operating costs. Even though the 90% furnace will undoubtedly cost less in the long run, the extra up-front costs can often be disillusioning.

I'm always interested in seeing what ideas builders and designers come up with, and how they implement some of the more fun elements of building science - and this example certainly caught my eye. Built in Wisconsin by designer Shane Black, the home uses solar thermal panels to heat a bed of sand beneath the house, keeping the interior temperature comfortable throughout the year.

Increasing incentives and product options abound, so solar thermal water heaters offer one of the fastest paybacks in the solar world. Of the may types available, implementing different technologies, one of my favorites continues to be vacuum tube type systems, like this kit from Kingspan.

I was recently at a meeting between local leaders, discussing how the newly released National Green Building Standard (NGBS) fits in with existing state and city level green building programs and incentives. There were a number of interested parties involved, including builders, designers, local utility companies, performance testers, city departments and state non-profits. I was extremely happy that we had such a wide range of perspectives present; the conversation was most interesting and I’d like to quickly share some of the thoughts that came from the group.