From Traditional Row House to Sustainable Home
Last Updated: Apr 13, 2025In the United States, buildings—the homes, apartment buildings, and offices—where we live and work account for about 39 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, on a global scale, the embodied carbon footprint of buildings is considered to be responsible for 11 percent of all annual greenhouse gas emissions. Among the almost 128 million households in the United States, the number of people who live in single-family homes or multifamily apartment or condo buildings that were specifically designed and built for sustainability is significantly lower than those that were not. The vast majority of residences across the country offer no real sustainability advantages.
Still, sustainable, energy-efficient, and net-zero construction methods have been gaining acceptance in recent years, across all price points. New technologies are bringing into new homes greater energy and operational efficiencies. Still, the environmental impact and the embodied energy footprint attached to new construction often go unconsidered.
According to one recent report, tearing down and replacing an older, energy-inefficient building with a high-efficiency new home will take an average of 80 years to offset the ecological impact of the new construction project. For this reason, architect and sustainability expert Carl Elefante, of the national firm Quinn Evans Architects, has said: “The greenest building is the one that’s already built.”
Homeowners deciding whether to tear down or renovate their single-family home may find inspiration in Sharon Slusher, a Philadelphia resident who renovated her traditional row home in North Philadelphia. In 2007, Slusher brought together a group of architects and contractors—Canno Architecture and Design, Think Green Landscape Architecture, and Walnut Tree Construction, as well as the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia—to come up with a major sustainable-renovation strategy.
Table of Contents
- SmartHome, Sustainable Home
- Reclaimed Materials
- Greening a Row Home
- How “Green” is Philly?
After working on the renovation for three years, her new sustainable home, located just blocks away from Fairmount Park, became the city’s first “rehab” to receive LEED Platinum certification from LEED for Homes. Slusher’s project wasn’t initially intended to achieve LEED Platinum credentials, according to Grid Magazine: She just wanted to meet her aspirations for sustainable living in “an inviting, comfortable, well-designed home,” she said.
Slusher has since sold the home, nestled in a residential area two blocks from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her experience, however, demonstrates how careful design during home renovations can transformer older, energy-inefficient homes into more sustainable residences.
SmartHome, Sustainable Home
The 1,919-square-foot row house has two bedrooms, two and a half baths, a utility room, a private study, and a separate loft. The spacious kitchen anchors the home and is outfitted with several high-end, energy-efficient appliances, including a built-in coffee maker.
All of the windows were replaced with double-paned, energy-efficient, and ENERGY STAR rated windows filled with argon gas. These windows bring in abundant daylight, which reduces dependence on artificial lighting without sacrificing energy efficiency. The highly insulated windows also reflect heat from the summer sun to reduce cooling loads during warm weather. A multi-story window in the breakfast room opens up into a ground-level garden designed around a 6,000-gallon Koi pond, one of the many unique and environmentally beneficial green areas located throughout the home.
Greening a Row Home
The design and construction team also worked with Slusher to include green—literally, green—spaces throughout the home. Two roof areas planted with vegetation were included in the retrofit, while vines climb up the front of the exterior and the rear garden was lushly landscaped. One roof garden has city views, automated audio and lighting, built-in seating, and a 700-square-foot raised garden bed with a watering system and outdoor shower.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
