Building a Home in the 21st Century
December 22, 2008
I was intrigued by an Associated Press piece in this mornings Los Angeles Times. It was entitled "Building a Green Lifestyle." The writer is reviewing an exhibit created under the aegis of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. http://www.msichicago.org/.
An Oakland, California Architect designed the "Smart Home". (I can remember in early 2000, when a client asked if a new tract of homes were "smart homes". In that instance what was being asked was whether the home had been wired for Internet access and wireless capability. The "SmartHome" on display in Chicago tried to take ideas for incorporating environmentally sustainable methods into the design and construction of the SmartHome.
The hardwood floors are sustainable bamboo, the bathroom tiles are actually made of recycled wine bottles. The roof is flat and is a garden with solar panels incorporated into the design. This is Chicago and solar can work there as well as here in California. It is a modular home uses half the energy and a third of the water of traditional homes. (One innovation is plumbing a bathroom so that the water from the bathroom sink is used in flushing the toilet. The overall purpose of the exhibit is to educate the public about green possibilities. While the SmartHome is architecturally ultra modern, David Johnson, who owns an international green building consulting firm in Boulder, Colorado suggests that what is fundamental to green building is that it can be a regular Craftsman house or a Cape Cod or a Santa Fe adobe or a California ranch.
It is well worth a visit to the Chicago Museum's web site http://www.msichicago.org/ to take a tour of this innovative exhibit.
I was intrigued by an Associated Press piece in this mornings Los Angeles Times. It was entitled "Building a Green Lifestyle." The writer is reviewing an exhibit created under the aegis of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. http://www.msichicago.org/.
An Oakland, California Architect designed the "Smart Home". (I can remember in early 2000, when a client asked if a new tract of homes were "smart homes". In that instance what was being asked was whether the home had been wired for Internet access and wireless capability. The "SmartHome" on display in Chicago tried to take ideas for incorporating environmentally sustainable methods into the design and construction of the SmartHome.
The hardwood floors are sustainable bamboo, the bathroom tiles are actually made of recycled wine bottles. The roof is flat and is a garden with solar panels incorporated into the design. This is Chicago and solar can work there as well as here in California. It is a modular home uses half the energy and a third of the water of traditional homes. (One innovation is plumbing a bathroom so that the water from the bathroom sink is used in flushing the toilet. The overall purpose of the exhibit is to educate the public about green possibilities. While the SmartHome is architecturally ultra modern, David Johnson, who owns an international green building consulting firm in Boulder, Colorado suggests that what is fundamental to green building is that it can be a regular Craftsman house or a Cape Cod or a Santa Fe adobe or a California ranch.
It is well worth a visit to the Chicago Museum's web site http://www.msichicago.org/ to take a tour of this innovative exhibit.
posted by shirley harry at 8:08 AM
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