Archive for March 31st, 2009

I was going to let this one pass, since I try to be positive all the time, like a proper lifestyle writer. But now both Fortworthology and Cowtown Chronicles have picked up the story of the new, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, as certified by Green Building Council) type of home and whether this presents an appropriate direction for sustainable design.

In case you’re not sure what this all means, a good description of what LEED certification is about is included on The Eclectic Blog . The question raised is whether the LEED home is 1) ugly and 2) a reasonable standard. A long essay on the topic was posted in The American Prospect which, among many other highly salient points, taps much of modern architecture as a “mind boggling waste.”

From my brief research, it appears that nowhere on the LEED guidelines does it say that the new green home must look like something out of n Isaac Asimov novel. So why, then, so we see images of green houses that look like inside-out school restrooms?

Well — and this is just my opinion — perhaps some who favor environmentalist design also are antagonistic to traditional values and house structures, and want it to be obvious to everyone that THIS is a GREEN HOME, $@%^&^$(#!

It’s the zealots vs. the rest of us, people.  Long sigh.

For a more authoritative reflection on the question, you might read “Ugly Ducklings or Beautiful Swans? by Kim Ward of Green Earth Energy Homes. And here s a news story on Fort Worth’s first LEED-Platinum certified home.

All this talk just drives me on faster to my upcoming essay series on Fort Worth Utopia — in which I plan to write about where we should try to be in 50 years.