20 stunning green homes
With rising sea levels, the hottest summers and coldest winters on record and holes in the ozone, the world must change its energy-munching ways to combat the impending doom. Happily, the potential apocalypse can be battled from the home, and in impressive style.
Location: Victoria, Australia
Architects/Designer: Jackson Clements Burrows Pty Ltd Architects
The living quarters of a retired couple and extended family, this Australian home resides in a designated wild fire zone. Its green credentials include rainwater collection tanks for domestic use and fully automated electrical systems to reduce power consumption. The building itself is to reflect the surrounding area by form and colour, encompassing the hills and straight edge cliffs. The overall look has a retro-futurist, Raygun Gothic feel, where the future is acting out the past.
Image: Luxist
2. X House
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Architects/Designer: Adrian Moreno and Maria Samaniego
This Ecuadorian glass house looks stunning sitting in the middle of nowhere, looking over expansive natural scenery with the glass sides giving the property a huge sense of space. Another rainwater collector with the ability to recycle every part of the building.
Image: Luxist
Location: Heilbronn, Germany
Architects/Designer: Baumraum
This tree-house, built partially in a pear tree, is the brain child of tree-house enthusiasts, Baumraum. This is one of the better dwellings and due to the nature of a tree-house being made from trees, all materials are natural and completely recyclable, without damaging the tree in anyway. Also, they fulfill the need for childhood nostalgia and/or childish dreams.
Image: Eitri
4. 8 East Walnut
Location: Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.A.
Price: $1,288,000
Architects/Designer: William M. Hawthorne
Proof if proof be needed that not all green homes have to be semi-futuristic, Jetson-like abodes. This little number has been created from the shell of another building. The innards were gutted and replaced with green materials and energy-saving gizmos, to turn it into a net-zero house: what it produces energy-wise is all it needs. Via momentous insulation techniques and solar roofing, this beautiful retirement home fits with the aesthetics of the street whilst having the lowest utility bill.
Image: Jetson Green
Location: Mill Valley, California, U.S.A.
Architects/Designer: SB Architects
This four storey, multi-layered-looking building that stares from a hillside at the Golden Gate Bridge ticks a multitude of green boxes. The siding is made from sustainable red cedar whilst the bulk of the building is made from reclaimed materials. Although massive in size, its impact on the environment is not.
Image: Contemporist
6. Silver Gardens
Location: New Mexico, U.S.A.
Price: Smaller Apartments: $288 to $764 per month. Larger Apartments: $650 to $1200
Architects/Designer: Claudio Vigil Architects
Silver Gardens was created to provide affordable green homes for a mixed variety of incomes. The building may not quite be as beautified as other green properties, but the affordable green home aesthetic puts it on this list. Why should the green home bonanza be the dreams of the rich and powerful?
Image: Jetson Green
Location: Mill Valley, California, U.S.A.
Architects/Designer: Vivian Dwyer
This property was originally built in the ’60s by Frank Lloyd Wright and still maintains the style of the era. However, the modern additions are all green-inspired. By recycling the old house, Vivian Dwyer has created a retro home with a green conscience reminiscent of the tree-hugging decade.
Image: Inhabitat
8. Orchid House
Location: Cotswold, United Kingdom
Price: £7.2 Million
Architects/Designer: Sarah Featherstone
This UK home is made to look like one of the surrounding countryside’s wild orchids. When it was on the market, Bradd Pitt was apparently one of the potential buyers. The property is so organic in design, it would be like living in the prehistoric plant that enveloped Prof. Summerlee in the original “Lost World.”
Image: Urban Review
9. Six Legged Caravan: Walking House
Location: Mobile
Architects/Designer: N55
This concept travelling device is a strange little insect, which gathers water and heats it when necessary. The electricity is powered by little windmills and solar panels. Because it walks, it has the ability of navigating rough terrain, leaving regular, old-hat, wheel-based caravans stuck in the mud. These might be still in the concept stage, but these little buggers will be great for the environmentally conscious holiday-goers.
Image: Dornob
Location: Mobile
Architects/Designer: LOT-EK
Ah, the docks: a financial hotbed with trade coming in and going out, an entrance for worldly goods and now a newly tapped source of residential properties. These old shipping containers have been turned into homes that can be transported easily. Due to the tiny width of the containers, areas can be slid in and out to create extra space. Not only do these make great individual properties, they are easily stackable for cargo-apartment blocks.
Image: Dornob
11. zeroHouse
Location: Mobile
Price: $350,000
Architects/Designer: Specht Harpman
A prefabricated house that can be shipped easily and erected quickly. This house can operate independently without needing to be hooked up to any external utility or waste disposal network. It has been designed to fulfill residential functions, office space in remote environments and as an eco-tourist resort unit.
Image: Dornob
12. Kokopo House
Location: Kopoko, Papua New Guinea
Price: n/a
Architects/Designer: Patrick Keane
Although uncompleted, this wall-less dwelling combines a host of green credentials whilst looking utterly spectacular. It uses the surrounding tropical environment to keep natural air circulating throughout and, due to the building looking like a piece of foliage, it will not spoil the beauty of the forest it will lie in. God knows how much the Shipping CEO is paying for this giant leaf.
Image: Inhabitat
13. Rotating Eco-Friendly Dome Home: Harmonique
Location: All Over The World
Price: $200,000 – $850,000 (Smallest to Largest)
Architects/Designer: Solaleya
If the world spins on an axis, why shouldn’t your home? This is the philosophy of Solaleya. These spinning homes are earthquake-proof and high wind-resistant. This means that if the world does go topsy-turvy under global warming, at least the raging winds and violent earth tremors wont affect you in your spinning pad.
Image: Dornob
14. The Lighthouse
Location: Watford, UK
Price: £150,000 (Not Including Land Acquisition)
Architects/Designer: Kingspan
One of the first UK net-zero homes, the Lighthouse is an amazing structure with impeccable green credentials. The property itself is relatively cheap to build with utility bills around £30 a year. Certainly beats the regular £500 a year.
Image: Jetson Green
15. Hobbit House
Location: Wales
Price: Cost the son-in-law/father-in-law duo £3000 to build
Architects/Designer: Simon Dale
The dream of living in Middle Earth has come true with the efforts of Simon Dale and his father-in-law. The entire property was built with spare wood from the surrounding woodland and stones dug from the hill it’s built in. The grass roof offers ample insulation and by the looks of the family photos, an excellent family home.
Image: Simon Dale
16. Nautilus House
Location: Naucalpan, Mexico
Architects/Designer: Senosiain Arquitectos
A wonderful under-the-sea, close-to-the-earth home. This Gaudi-esque property could, quite possibly, be designed in such a way to aid survival for when the sea level rises.
Image: World Architecture News
17. Dancing Trees, Singing Birds
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Architects/Designer: Hiroshi Nakamura
Just another inner-city, multiplex. Wait … Tokyo has a forest at its centre? The apartments blend in with the trees, completely camouflaged, so as not to despoil the natural environment. Each apartment interior is different with varying themes, giving each separate inhabitant his or her own place of luxury.
Image: Home Design Find
18. Abod
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Architects/Designer: Doug Sharp
These properties are designed to be outstanding homes in tough environments, offering perfect homes to the most deprived people of the world. Cheap and easy to build and run, these homes could be the hope for thousands of people across the globe.
Image: Jetson Green
19. Schwimmhaus
Location: Mobile
Architects/Designer: Confused-Direction
A contender for best home when the icecaps melt, this net-zero home speeds you around in luxury. The design looks extremely retro with a glimmer of the ’60s in its shape. It is definitely more of a floating home rather than a boat you can live in.
Image: Inhabitat
20. Joanopolis House
Location: Joanopolis, Sao Paulo, Brasil
Price: €195.000,00
Architects/Designer: Cristiane Muniz, Fabio Valentim, Fernanda Barbara and Fernando Viegas
This is another retro-futurist style home. The net-zero beauty is built from recycled materials and nearby rocks, stuck together using local techniques. The effect gives you a Flinstones, Bedrockean aesthetic.
Image: Luxist
Matt is a contributor and researcher at Money Choices, a leading Australian personal finance reviews website where consumers can research the best refinance home loans currently available on the market. Check out their blog for more of his posts.
