Meet the Regular People Living in America’s Smartest Homes

Lynda Elayna Spratley, a 29-year-old design student, was one of the first residents of SCADpad, an experimental dorm in a parking garage behind her school's main building. The compound was built and styled by students, faculty and alumni of Savannah College of Art and Design to prove that underused public spaces can be repurposed into homes.

To promote good health, an iPad-like display— which also shows the weather—gamifies the hand-washing experience: the longer you scrub, the longer a monkey runs from a tree-cutting machine. It was “the first thing my friends wanted to do when they came over,” says Spratley.

Because the dorm was built so close to the edge of the parking garage, “I could see the skyline, and sunlight and fresh air came in—but not the rain,” Spratley recalls. “Being so close to the highway and hearing the repetitive whooshwhoosh sound of the cars driving by also reminded me of waves on the beach.”

Outside the SCADpad units, residents can tend to the community herb garden, which thrives on excess shower water—once it’s been filtered. Spratley stopped by several times to pick cilantro for nachos.

Other elements, such as the life-size chessboard, help to foster a mini-community. “I had friends over to watch The Fifth Element on the ceiling of the parking deck,” she says. “It was like living in a piece of the future.”

Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Leslie Archie now lives with her daughter and grandchildren in this hurricane-proof, solar-powered home assembled by the Make It Right Foundation.

Archie’s grandkids Demori, 5, Kaleah, 8, and ­Dalonté, 4.

The children love to play under the house, which sits on 8-ft. concrete-and-steel stilts to protect it from flooding.

To build her 200 sq. ft. tiny home in Boise, Idaho in 2007, Macy Miller, then a 22-year-old architect, bought a flatbed trailer ($500), rented a 0.125-acre lot ($200 a month) and spent 18 months tinkering with the construction.

Now that she has more than halved her housing costs, “I don’t need to work as much,” says Miller, who recently quit her full-time job. “I can spend more time with my daughter.”

In lieu of standard plumbing, Miller hooked up a garden hose to a nearby potable water source. And although the house is wired for heat, she uses it less than she expected. “The house is well insulated, and between my body heat and my computer, it gets warm pretty quickly,” she says.

Retired Marine Sergeant John Peck lost all four of his limbs after stepping on IED in Afghanistan in 2010. Today, however, Peck lives in a house built by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation that was designed to serve his individual needs.

Peck at home playing video games with an apparatus built by a friend.

Peck inputs a code to automatically open the exterior doors of his house. "I don't have to push against them with my wheelchair anymore," he says.

"My house makes the little things easier," he says.

Hilda Brunwasser, 79, lives with Lively, a $40 system of sensors–attached to her pillbox, key chain and more–that alert her loved ones to irregularities in her schedule.

By the time he was 27, Luis Giuria, a South Bronx native, weighed 400 lb. But he has lost nearly 200 pounds thanks in part to living in Arbor House, a low-income housing project that emphasizes active design, an increasingly popular style of architecture that's meant to encourage physical activity.

Arbor House, a $37.7 million, 120,000-sq.-ft. (11,150 sq m) low-income housing project, encourages exercise with features like visible stairwells and bright, inviting indoor-outdoor gyms.

To help improve eating habits, Arbor House offers its roof rent-free to Sky Vegetables, an urban-agriculture company that sells or donates 40% of its produce to nearby shops and farmers' markets.

Luis Giuria's son, Xzavier, likes to play on the swing blocks, one of the playground apparatuses meant to get kids excited about exercise.