3 ms·

Houses in the developed world simply aren't designed to be "green". Painting your roof, reducing the number of windows, and adding insulation are all band-aid

Houses in the developed world simply aren't designed to be "green". Painting your roof, reducing the number of windows, and adding insulation are all band-aid solutions to a much deeper issue. All the common "green" solutions might cut your energy consumption in half, but half of a large amount of energy is still a large amount of energy. I've seen some extremely green homes, and they're far more bizarre looking than the example given in this article. Homes designed around sunlight, earth (for insulation and heat regulation), and airflow turn out looking VERY different from homes that have had energy-saving features tacked on.

m_eiman 16y ago
Depending on the climate, they don't have to look too futuristic. Here are a bunch of "passive houses" in Sweden (houses without a dedicated source of heat, instead surplus heat from cooking, showering, people etc provide enough heat due to good insulation): http://www.google.se/images?um=1&hl=sv&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Asv-SE%3Aofficial&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=passivhus+site%3A.se&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= http://www.google.se/images?um=1&hl=sv&safe=off&...
whyenot 16y ago
Many of the more futuristic looking ones are not just designed to be "green" but also to demonstrate new construction techniques. My personally favorite is the FabLab House http://www.fablabhouse.com/en/ http://www.fablabhouse.com/en/ which is very "green" (passive cooling, good roof designed for efficient use of solar, etc) but also demonstrates building houses from wood shaped with CNC machines.
anamax 16y ago
> Painting your roof, Which color? If you want heat, you should paint it black. If you want cool, you should paint it white. Are you going to repaint it twice a year?