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This elegant, tiny house was designed with light, flow and affordability top of mind.
PROJECT TEAM
Builder/ Developer
Jose Hernandez
Castrodad
Caguas, Puerto Rico


Architect/ Landscape
Fernando Abruña
Abruña & Musgrave, Architects
San Juan, Puerto Rico


Interiors
Margaret Musgrave
San Juan, Puerto Rico


The house’s double-sloping roof faces south at 18 degrees, to facilitate the performance of the PV panels—as well as rainwater harvesting.


 


Solaria is a the first “pre-designed” affordable green house in the Puerto Rico housing market. At $130,000, it’s making waves as a cost-effective way to provide high design to the masses.


The two-bedroom, two and a half bath home totals 1,200 sq. ft., and was designed by Fernando Abruña for developer Jose Hernandez Castrodad, who sells the design, stamped plans with construction permits and all the necessary sustainable materials, equipment and systems.


This house was built as a showroom for the developer and is part of the Puerto Rico Energy Center at the Turabo University campus in Caguas. Students monitor the house’s performance. “The main purpose of our project is to develop a full understanding of how easy it is to build and live in a sustainable house,” explains builder Jose Hernandez Castrodad. “Our goal is to educate the general public about the possibility of adopting a green style of life. The design and the equipment used in the project is friendly for everyone, not so highly specialized or sophisticated that it would be difficult or expensive to buy or to use.”


Solaria is designed for its longer façades to face north/south and the two shorter ones to face east/west. The simple volume measures 48’ x 13’. The building envelope was built with core-insulated concrete panels to reduce heat passage to the interior. The narrowness of the house and the generous aluminum and glass jalousie window area allows for ample daylighting. Natural ventilation is supplemented by ceiling fans located in the main living space and the bedroom.


The first floor accommodates the kitchen, dining and living areas, and a visitors’ bathroom fitted with a lavatory connected to a graywater system and a composting toilet that uses no water. The first floor has one bedroom with its own Lavadu. This is a Solaria innovation, where the lavatory and shower are built as a single hybrid unit. reducing plumbing costs and allowing for the simple reuse of graywater coming from it. The house has a mezzanine level where the master bedroom is located, also with its own Lavadu.


The house has a double sloping roof, which houses the solar hot water panels. It slopes down to a corner where rainwater is harvested in an exterior concrete cistern, which protects the kitchen space from solar radiation.

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