Mercado District of Menlo Park: Part II of The Tucson Innovative Home Tour

Continuing last week's innovative home tour, our second stop was in the Mercado District of Menlo Park, rather a remote town in Spain or Mexico because of its unique appearance and international atmosphere-- but in Tucson.

Walking through the courtyard, in between two rows of lavish homes, we were attracted to how large and design-stricken the structures were. Upon entering one of the homes, a small entry courtyard invited us to continue our tour through the home.

Walking through the front door, we all gasped "wows."

Developed by Street Scene, the Mercado District homes couple design with energy-efficient architecture.

"Street Scene Development is the culmination of two visionary companies, Stellar Gray Fine Homes and Rammed Earth Development. Stellar Gray, renowned for developing authentic adobe villages, creates organic architecture influenced by regional and historical design. Rammed Earth Development specializes in authentic rammed earth and adobe construction. The vision and focus of Street Scene is to design and build homes with sustainable materials, creating neighborhoods that feel integrated with their environments - a sense of belonging in the Sonoran Desert," according to the Street Scene Development Web site.

Houses built with adobe bricks offer the lowest amount of embodied energy and the "average adobe brick home is made using only 10 percent of the embodied energy used for the construction of a typical modern house," according to the Adobe Building Systems, LLC, Web site.

Homes built with adobe bricks are heat resistant, keeping the homes cool in the summer heat and warm in the winter. Adobe exterior and interior walls need little maintenance and are "vermin-proof, dust-free, fire-proof, flood-proof, insect-proof, bullet-proof, rust-proof, water-proof, and can be wiped clean with a sponge. Since adobe is non-toxic, the walls are also non-allergenic," according to the Adobe Building Systems site.

So, if you're looking for beautiful design that meets green architecture using adobe as the structures prime building material, the Mercado District stands as a great example of just that! Besides, having a home that's bullet proof is pretty cool if you think about it...