Building Energy 2007: Accessorize Your PowerPod

Attendees of NESEA’s BuildingEnergy07 show in Boston this week had the chance to walk through the new “healthy, hip, affordable” PowerPod prefab home. Designed by Lawrence, Massachusetts based PowerHouse, the PowerPod was transported on two trailers and assembled inside the Seaport World Trade Center.

The PowerPod incorporates many energy-efficient and green design choices, most visibly a solar butterfly roof that collects rainwater and includes an active solar array for electricity and hot water.

Measuring a svelte 480 square feet, the floor plan highlights an open living/dining/kitchen area that opens onto a front porch. Many visitors remarked that the high ceiling provided a surprising sense of spaciousness. A bedroom, bathroom, and utility closet are in the rear.

A PowerPod home can be yours for around $200 per square foot—roughly $100,000 for this model.

Rather than focusing on off-the-shelf designs, PowerHouse promotes itself as facilitating a custom design and build process based on a planned site and intended use.

One planned site is Old Woods Farm, a residential “conservation neighborhood” under development in Tenants Harbor, Maine. It will consist of ten different PowerHouse homes built on 16 acres of a 100 acre parcel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.