Austin’s Greenest House for Sale

Date Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm Posts By Ryan Brown

The University of Texas School of Architecture is selling the BLOOMhouse

UT Bloomhouse Solar Decathlon 2007 Entry

The BLOOMhouse was the UT school of architecture’s entry in the 2007 Solar Decathlon competition in Washington D.C. The house placed 10th in the overall competition, 2nd in the engineering category.

As the competition is based on principles of sustainable design and re-use, it makes sense to offer the UT entry up for sale. The proceeds will help the team fund their 2009 Solar Decathlon home.

Here are some of the BLOOMhouse specs listed on the website:

  • House Dimensions = 14′ x 50′
  • 6.6 kW photo voltaic array, inverter, battery system
  • LED lighting
  • Metal-faced SIP construction (R-30)
  • Energy efficient appliances

The starting bid is $200k, not a bad deal considering all of the technology and design that went in to the project. It would probably be a great house for a remote property or a small infill lot. Here’s the floorplan:

Bloomhouse Interior Plan

For more details and information on how to bid here is the website:

Be sure to get your bids in before January 18!

Disclaimer: I can’t be certain that is is actually Austin’s ‘greenest’ house. There is not yet a commonly understood measure of greenness (LEED and Austin Energy are addressing this), and I am not aware of a ranking list of green homes in our area. In any case, I think you’ll agree that a Solar Decathlon entry is going to be the cream of the ‘green’ crop.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Architecture, Austin, Green Building, Inspired Homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Filed under Architecture, Austin, Green Building, Inspired Homes

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2 Responses to “Austin’s Greenest House for Sale”

  1. Adrienne Breaux Says:
    January 8th, 2008 at 12:45 am

    Oh for an empty lot and $200K! I would snap up that sweet green house in a heartbeat.

  2. Ryan Brown Says:
    January 10th, 2008 at 12:22 am

    I agree, what a neat opportunity. I’m really interested to see where this house ends up. Does anyone know what happened to the 2005 UT Solar Decathlon entry? Perhaps its a guest house in some UT architecture prof’s back yard??

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