When the New Norris House was built in 2011, it was meant as a student project, a way to sensitively reinterpret the Norris Dam planned community of the 1930s, which housed workers building the Tennessee dam, for the modern era. Three years and one major American Institute of Architects (AIA) accolade later, the home—a joint effort among the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design, construction and building firms, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which provided the grant through a student sustainable-design competition—is slated to hit the auction block on May 5 with a reserve of $155K.
The design manages to pack a lot into the light, airy 1,006 square feet: the kitchen, bedroom, living room, mud room, and bathroom fill the ground floor (plus, there's a deck outside!), while a ladder-accessible loft adds some usable space upstairs. Clever built-ins keep furniture to a minimum, and green details such as Energy Star appliances, an efficient solar water heater, wastewater and rainwater repurposing systems, LED lights, and the natural daylighting allowed by the open floorplan have earned the New Norris House its LEED Platinum certification. In honoring the project on its Top Ten Green Projects list last year, the AIA jury noted that "this type of residence could be replicable so it could have a far greater influence than just a single house." Go on now, fans of great influence, place those bids.
Take a video tour:
· State of Tennessee to Sell Award-Winning New Norris House [Archinect]
· The New Norris House [official site]