Can a Net Zero Cottage Work in the Suburbs?

Architect David Baker’s new hyper-sustainable San Francisco home pushes the boundaries of building green while providing a model for suburban and urban projects alike. Proving that good design can be smart, attractive, and perfectly suited to its site, the house has achieved the highest possible green building ratings: Passive House, Net Zero, and LEED Platinum. Says Baker of the home he shares with partner Yosh Asato. “Everything about this was an opportunity to try.”

At the front of the lot sits a traditional Victorian that Baker turned into a two-level multipurpose space, with a community-oriented cultural event space called StoreFrontLab and a small rental studio below, and a two-bedroom rental apartment above. With permeable pavers diverting rain water from city sewers, solar hot water and electric fulfilling over half of the building’s needs, and thoughtful passive solar design overall, this building is carefully attuned to both the site and sustainability.

Yet the real centerpiece of the development is the home, named Zero Cottage, located at the other end of the lot on the site of a former stable. For Baker, whose firm David Baker Architects is known for its innovative, green projects, his home was his personal design lab. “You can only be so experimental with clients,” he said. “Here, I could inflict all my ideas on myself, it was really fun.”

 “I wanted to show that I could make a net positive house in a super dense urban setting,” he explains. “Building net positive is easier in the suburbs, with more space to grow food, compost, have rain systems, solar systems, etc.”

Zero Cottage was chosen as the November Editor's Design Choice article for Build a Better Burb.