HOME > NEWS & PRESS > NEWS ITEM My Tour of the Smart Home: Green + Wired at the Museum of Science and IndustryShare HousingZone.com The recently re-done Smart Home at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry (in conjunction with Wired magazine)was opened to the public this week. I was fortunate enough to snag a press pass and take a tour of the modular-built, Michelle Kaufmann-designed home. Kaufmann needs no introduction, and by the photo to the left you can see this home is definitely on the contemporary side. The home, factory-built by All American Homes, has been open to the viewing public since 2008. It has now has been spruced up with newer products and accessories. The home features a lot of the trends and products I’ve been covering on the home automation side. Benjamin Moore low VOC paints, a GE tankless water heater, Uni-Solar Thin Film photovoltaics on the roof, Rabbit Air purifier, Southwest Windpower home wind turbine, Icynene spray foam insulation, Progress Lighting LED fixtures, Warmboard radiant heating and Bosch appliances, to name a few (there’s even a biodiesel fuel collector/converter and a solar-powered autonomous lawnmower in the garage…can you say sweeeeeet?) You can see the full list of products here at www.msichicago.org/smarthome. Needless to say, there’s lots of neat stuff. Our tour guide, Darryl (the guy on the left), pointed out the lack of walls, the wide open floor plan, the NanaWall sliding exterior doors and the wide open ceiling that carries all the way to the top floor. The open kitchen features countertops made from recycled oven doors, which I thought was a neat substrate to work from. Most of the wall tiles and bathroom tile work were recycled bottles. What caught my attention was the fact that the exhibit wasn’t hung up on the products. Outside (though there is still snow on the ground), you’ll see plants native to Northern Illinois and some good old-fashioned prairie grasses. The walkways are composite decking and the stone is locally-quarried limestone (there’s some recycled marble accents, too). Iron Woods FSC-certified Ipe makes up the wood siding; Cembonit Fiber Cement makes up the rest of the siding. Here’s the 90-second tour. I think it’ll do a better job of illustrating the cool-ness than just some static shots. |
