21ST CENTURY SHOTGUN BLENDS TRADITIONAL & MODERN

TIMES-PICAYUNE. APRIL 10, 2008. By Doug McCash

The design of the Global Green model home in Holy Cross is smart. I'm not talking about all the futuristic energy saving features; I'm just talking about the appearance.

To do its job, it had to be jazzy enough to draw attention to itself, but stay pretty much within the scale and prevailing taste of the neighborhood. I think it does both.

The general design is a two-story stack of interlocking boxes, open from front to back like an old-fashioned shotgun. The most striking feature is the conflicting roof angle. The slope of the main roof faces south so the solar panels can best soak up the rays. The New York-based architects -- Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman -- sloped the front porch roof in the other direction just to add some variety. I like the zigzag effect.

I also like the ribbed wooden rails that wrap around the porches and crawl space, adding a strong horizontal current. The steel-cable balustrade of the interior stairs is a nice nautical touch -- poetic considering you can watch freighters unload from the stairway window. These are cool yet conservative touches that spice up the place without seeming too self-indulgent.

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