Picture This
CNN Viewers Tour Bouratoglou ‘Green’ House
This photo has been featured before on the City Tech website, but it wasn’t until April of this year that thousands of CNN viewers had an opportunity to “tour” this stunning “green” house designed and built by Architectural Technology Professors Jill and John Bouratoglou for themselves and their two young children. CNN broadcast six segments live throughout the morning of April 12.
In addition to teaching, Jill and John are professional architects and have designed many houses, but this was the first house they had ever built themselves. “We didn’t want to pay the asking price for a brownstone down the block,” says Jill, “but had outgrown the two-bedroom apartment we had lived in since before our children were born. We knew that we could build a house at less cost than the one we were interested in buying.”
As the original City Tech website news story reported, they saved money by purchasing many of the building materials online, and FedEx and UPS visited the construction site about as frequently as the masonry, electrical and plumbing contractors. “When we talk about the place with family and friends,” Jill muses, “we lovingly refer to it as ‘the house that FedEx built.’”
The Bouratoglou family is saving even more money because the house is energy efficient and its many windows enable them to save on rising energy costs. During the day, for example, the house is brightly lit from top to bottom without turning on the lights, and the windows open in different ways such as on a tilt designed to let the hot air out.
05/22/07
