Dan's Papers - May 9, 2008 - Cool Modular Home is Energy Powerhouse, Literally

"There's no such thing as an energy efficient reasonably priced house out here," says architect Lazslo Kiss. A year ago he decided to do something about it.

What he did was create a four-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath modular home in Sag Harbor. The prototype, which he is calling the ASAP House (About Saving a Planet house), is a Net Zero Energy House, or Zero Energy Modern Modular home, and Kiss now has them for sale, in 700 to 3,100 square-foot versions.

A modular home comes ready-made, built in a factory and shipped direct (this one in three sections). The house was delivered January 28 and the Kiss family plans to move in once it's finished, most likely at the end of this month.

Kiss jokes that he also built the house because his daughter goes to the Ross School in East Hampton and the drive was too long from their home in Quogue. But it's just the latest chapter in their housing saga. He and his family had been residents of downtown Manhattan, living right across from the World Trade Center. As you can well assume, that fateful day did for them what it did for many - had them pack their bags and get out of town. The family purchased their new house in Quogue and have been East End residents ever since.

And now Chapter Three: Kiss tore down the house that was standing on the Sag Harbor lot, which he bought for cash. It was only half renovated but did have a swimming pool and was a mere six minutes from the center of town. "As it came together it became obvious to me that I wasn't the only person who wanted one."

"I always thought modular was a great idea," says Kiss. Surprisingly it took a long time to find a manufacturer but he eventually landed upon one in Pennsylvania. At about 80 percent complete, there's still a considerable amount of site work to be done to these homes once they arrive. In this case, it was installing solar panels and a geothermal system, as well as the usual plumbing and air conditioning. The panels are installed on the roof to power the house during the day and feed electricity back into the grid of LIPA. Geothermal units, those that use the constant temperature of the earth and the power of the sun for heat and electricity, are the most efficient system and can be installed in any house, new or old. At night, when there is no sunlight to convert to electricity, the house takes power from the grid, the surplus it supplied earlier. Other efficiency features are also built into the design - light fixtures that accept only energy-efficient bulbs, and five sets of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors in the living room and L-shaped windows in the bedrooms that make passive use of the sun's light and heat. The beauty of only constructing 2,520 square feet is that it takes three to four months to finish versus a year for most regular houses.

At a retail price of approximately $280 to $290 per square foot, the home is still way under the typical cost; his construction actually came in a lot less (Kiss notes that it's the land more than the house that is the real factor when it comes to the selling price of a house in the Hamptons). Excluding landscaping and interior accoutrements, the house comes in around $670,000 to $680,000. In addition to the bed and bathrooms, the ASAP house has a living/dining/kitchen/great room, two studies, and a full basement. Kiss feels the size is in the realm of sustainable house. "Anything larger is not sustainable."

As a 14-year-old boy, Kiss moved from his native Hungary to Caldwell, New Jersey. After college at Cornell, he worked with O.M. Ungers, the celebrated architect who happened to be dean of architecture at Cornell during that time. He shares his New York City-based firm, Kiss + Zwigard, with partner Todd Zwigard, an assistant professor in the design department at Parsons, and in the architecture department at Columbia, as well as other architects, interior designers, and project managers. After 15 years in business, the firm can list many accomplishments, from the Federal Design Achievement Award for work at the Cooper Hewitt, to taking part in an exhibition at the Deutsch Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, to Kiss's own AIA Architecture Awards (he has two). His work has been featured in The New York Times, and many relevant magazines - Metropolitan Home, Interiors, Progressive Architecture, Casa Bella, Elle Décor, and House Beautiful, among others, and he has done projects worldwide, from Japan to Hong Kong to Montreal.

Kiss says the project has been an interesting ride so far. In January The New York Times published a piece on the work in progress. "We got about 70 calls and e-mails from that article," says Kiss.

East End residents are taking to green building, albeit slowly, the architect tells. Typically, the discussion revolves around return on investment of those environmentally friendly aspects, oddly enough, since discussion isn't had about any other materials, even as they are obviously expensive, like marble counters or upscale wood floors. "Everybody's on this green bandwagon but it's more about being sustainable," acknowledges Kiss. "They're building these huge green house-15,000, 20,000 square foot houses-and saying that they're green. Are they really sustainable? I don't think you can build a 15,000 to 20,000 square foot house and call it sustainable." So potential homeowners can see the savings firsthand, the house will be part of a tour on July 12 and 13 during an Energy Fair organized by the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum. The firm is also holding an event at the ASAP house with Design Within Reach on Saturday, May 10.

Kiss says he's very proud of his achievement and sees the future of environmental awareness as inevitable, especially on the East End. "It has to be, otherwise we're not going to survive," he says, only half kidding. "Either we adjust or the earth will adjust for us." He notes, though, that making change has to come collectively. "There has to be a much larger discussion, a much larger involvement of the government to change it. It's a new time. Those $4 gallons of gas are here to stay."