How a ‘Green House of the Future’ Can Impede Environmental Progress.

Roger K. Lewis in The Washington Post: “The Wall Street Journal got into the game recently with a report on concepts by four architectural firms that the newspaper asked to imagine the ‘Green House of the Future.’… Speculating about visionary green houses is tantalizing, but much greater benefits accrue at a larger scale.… Focusing on hypothetical designs of free-standing houses can even be a distraction.… No matter how green individual homes are, suburban sprawl is intrinsically anti-green. It generates infrastructure inefficiency; car dependency and rising fossil fuel demand; carbon-emitting, time-wasting road congestion; and, despite availability of inexpensive land at ever-greater distances from jobs, escalating development, construction and public service costs.… Transforming neighborhoods, buildings and infrastructure to accommodate new functions may be the best way for architects and the real estate industry to help create a greener planet.”