having spent a little time working on some arctic material, and having gone through something of an “oh my god, what have we done” crisis/depression, the notion dawned on me that new technology, and constructive vision of sustainable living must have a strong vital, playful, hope inducing quality to it. how critical it is the face the current crisis with substance that uplifts while it heals. question: is there work (yours?) that you can point to (websites?) that embodies this new vision? thanks!!!

There is a site that I happened upon. It’s is www.greenhomebuilding.com. There is a good little article describing 13 principles of sustainable architecture. Kelly Hart lists look like this:
Small is Beautiful
Heat with the sun
Keep your cool
Let Nature cool your food
Be energy efficient
Conserve water
use local materials
use natural materials
save the forests
recycle materials
build to last
grow your food
share fascilites

good things to think about and consider if you are remodeling or building a new home.

Please see my work on the Fab Tree Hab porject
www.archinode.com/bienal.html

Yes.
but think about drivers —design drivers that is.
what alters the moods of “makers” in america? Designers should be encouraged to embrace coded principles of ecology, technology, and social science. For instance, Henry Ford pondered cars manufactured out of soy material and powered by ethanol. The prospects of fabricating automobiles that mesh with America’s agriculture economy and planned for decomposition via recycling were staggering. Envision the alternative if Ford had fashioned cars on an assembly line designed for the disassembly line later. It is a dialectic of decay vs. eternity that connotes industrial engineering with sustainable design culture. Teaching how to avoid these “end-of-the-pipe” strategies and still maintain good design is key. Why have not the leading American signature designers of today addressed these concerns? What will the anointed circle with their sleek blobs and macho white boxes finally attribute to innovation when their luster fades and the chemicals seep out? Green design continues to concentrate on a formal language that won’t offend corporate America. “People will never want to have an aesthetically inferior building around, no matter how well stocked it is with cutting-edge thermal glass, photovoltaic cells, and zero-emission carpeting”

see my other post about my design work.
+M

I agree with Mitchell: There is no reason why low flush toilets need to be unappealing in aesthetic terms. But until our culture perceives green design as something more than a painful necessity, the situation will not change. We must reframe green architecture as an exciting new field of possibilities, rather than as “fringe” practice. I suspect this will begin to happen over time. In fact, I’ve already seen a number of articles on green design in mainstream journals and magazines. In the meantime, I think it’s important to encourage a move towards “green” whenever and wherever possible.