Luxury green homes!?

I know, I know... haven't blogged in a month or more. This is just what happens when art projects engulf one's life. I have a lot of catching up to do, so catch up I will:

I am still focusing on critiquing sustainable architecture (for their aesthetic and experiential sense of disconnect from nature), but hopefully I'm getting closer to the focus I needed. I want to look at high-end, architect-designed green homes in the United States that always make it into coffee-table anthologies of cool new architectural design. (Funny, because this actually goes back to that very first outline I wrote, the one that I thought wouldn't work...) Members of the design/architecture blogosphere sometimes critically refer to some of these as "one-offs" because they are used by architects to show off their more extreme ideas, at the pleasure of very wealthy clients - which already highlights some obvious issues with this whole idea. Just a few of them are:

- Zero Energy Home by Zoka Zola in Chicago
- Sea Train House by Jennifer Siegal in LA
- 156 Reade Street by John Petrarca (Studio Petrarca) in NY
- 1310 East Union Street by Davild Miller (Miller/Hull Partnership) in Seattle

Another example that I found particularly interesting for its repeated appearance in popular press lately is:

- Wired Home by LivingHomes in LA

...but it is not really a one-off in the true sense. Well, it IS customized but it was also "pre-fabricated" which meant that it was built from parts that could be 80% assembled in factory and then shipped on-site to be put together quickly and easily (and money-saving-ly). But it is architect designed ("custom") and it is extremely expensive, for a not-too-big house. (Yes, it cost $4 million, is filled with custom fittings and high-tech gadgets, and is pretty much a glass box; thank you Mies van der Rohe)

Challenges and thoughts and notes to self...
One challenge with this is deciding... should I tackle one or more projects? I could just pick one project in particular and analyze it to death (in a good way). Or I can pick two and compare/contrast them. But even if I pick one to server as my central focus, I could still bring in other projects to "bounce" off of it.

But should I focus on an architect or company?
Right now, my inclination is to steer away from focusing on a particular architect or architectural firm and just look at specific built projects. If I chose to focus on the architect rather than the building, issues surrounding a particular practitioner's style/aesthetic or philosophy would come into play and that's not what I am interested in; I am interested in built projects. I am toying with the idea of focusing on LivingHomes, a company that's been mentioned copiously both in the published press (newspapers, etc.) and in the online blogosphere, because they have a lot of built examples. But then I might get embroiled in issues of what it means to be making pre-fab homes, market trends, consumer wants/needs, etc. Plus there are other companies sprouting up left and right that practically mirror what LivingHomes does (super-green, pre-fabricated homes for the upper-middle class, basically) - Marmol Radziner Prefab and Jennifer Siegal's Office of Mobile Design are a few of the more well-known. If I chose one, I might as well analyze them all as they all work in practically the same vein.

On the other other other hand, I could choose one project from each of these three well-known design companies (I almost forget to call them architects because their work is so sleek and aesthetically considered) and just use them as "prototypical representatives" of this new pre-fab trend which Arts/Living writers at the New York Times think is becoming the next big, cool revolution in housing. That would allow me to make critiques that could have an overarching application.

Could I see it in the flesh(glass/steel)?
It would be ideal if I could actually visit a project. I just found out too late that the Wired Home in LA tours ended TODAY, my first day back in CA for Thanksgiving. One day too late!! Aaah. Oh well, there are other opportunities. (But it would have been awesome...)

Dealing with the obvious
This issue is so recurrent, it's going to need addressing sooner or later, so perhaps in the introduction I need to discuss the public's view of green homes as expensive, aesthetically daring, and out-of-reach. The copious coverage of high-end green homes in the popular press definitely contributes to this myth. Turns out there are definitely lots of current attempts (and some budding successes) at creating budget-sensitive green homes that look like a normal home. Example: IdealHomes built their first prototype of a zero-energy home in Oklahoma last year that costs less than $200k. (article) It's not New York Times front-page material but it's marketable to the middle class...

After all the thinking experiments...
What it comes down to is basically me deciding which particular projects to focus on.