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ne of the most important homes in America is a snug, three-story residence on Sumner Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its walls are stuffed with insulation made from recycled blue jeans. Enlarged windows and skylights mean the lights stay firmly off until dark. Two hundred eighty-five sensors are installed throughout the 94-year-old house, constantly monitoring electrical plug loads, carbon dioxide levels and the weather outside to capture 17 million data points a day.
The 4,600-square-foot dwelling, built in 1924, is an ongoing experiment led by Harvard architecture professor Ali Malkawi, director of the university’s Center for Green Buildings and Cities. As climate change continues to progress, it will become increasingly necessary to turn old buildings into energy-efficient structures. Malkawi, 52, intends to lead the way.
HouseZero will rely on natural ventilation and daylight. Windows are shaped to provide maximum light in the winter and automated to open when CO2 levels get too high. Solar heat helps draw air from the basement through a vent. Michael Grimm/Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities
Built in 1924 to house a family, HouseZero retains some residential charm. The interior had to be optimized for work, so the architects padded the central stairwell to limit noise, creating a visual focal point in the process.Michael Grimm/Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities
After 12 months of renovations that ended in December, the home is officially known as HouseZero—meaning it produces zero carbon emissions and requires almost zero electricity from the grid for heating and cooling. Next, Malkawi hopes to take data collected from HouseZero and create software that will make green-retrofitting technology widely available.
“This structure is the first attempt for us to be able to understand the complex behavior of buildings,” says Malkawi, who keeps his offices at HouseZero. “We are trying to capture that, analyze it, build software to allow us to command it in a very gentle way—to help rather than to disassociate us from the outside and from the conditions that we are dealing with.”