Green Homes, With a Dash of Hyperbole

August 24, 2016 1:51 PM

Green Homes That Will Make You Want To Go Off The Grid And Live In A Forest If living in a tropical bamboo home nestled inside a green village on the island of Bali doesn't sound better than a skyrise apartment in a concrete jungle, then I just can't even.
posted by Michele in California (33 comments total)

lol @ the idea of greenfield single-family detached homes being green in any way other than the actual rgb value
posted by entropicamericana at 2:33 PM on August 24, 2016 [17 favorites]

Quetzalcoatl's Nest is multi-tenant
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:38 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

If living in a tropical bamboo home nestled inside a green village on the island of Bali doesn't sound better than a skyrise apartment in a concrete jungle

A few years back, I lived in Napa, CA. Small town, nothing but vineyards and mountains and trees around. No car means no going to the big bad city. I couldn't stand it.
3 months in, I rented a car, drove into San Francisco, parked it in the central business district, nothing but cement and big buildings all around, got out, took a big lungful of concrete jungle, felt like I could breath for the first time in weeks.
posted by signal at 2:44 PM on August 24, 2016 [16 favorites]

I love the Norwegian sod house, and the eco pod.

I have done far too few psychedelics in my life to handle the aesthetics of the rest of those houses.
posted by C.A.S. at 2:56 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ridiculous click-bait--few even say where they are, all the photos are stolen from elsewhere, and the "writing," well.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:00 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Any of these near a 24hr. Walmart?
posted by notreally at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

These gypsy caravans are making a big comeback among nature-loving enthusiasts who want a creative way to live off the beaten path.

Made me so irrationally mad.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 3:43 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

...a tropical bamboo home nestled inside a green village on the island of Bali...

That sounds like a prescription for a gazillion mosquito bites and a case of malaria.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:51 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't think the "ecopod" has a bathroom. Or a kitchen. Or a bed, other than the couch.It's basically an outdoor office.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:03 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

If living in a tropical bamboo home nestled inside a green village on the island of Bali doesn't sound better than a skyrise apartment in a concrete jungle, then....

... congratulations on actually thinking about what you want instead of just devouring the cultural memes that "TROPICAL = GOOD" and "CITY = BAD"?

And, as it always does, "I just can't even" is short for "I just can't even use my brain to consider the issues at hand and form a reasonable response". I expect that it stems from a lack of practice.
posted by IAmUnaware at 5:31 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I love looking at what might be deemed "alternative housing" - the idea of living outside of the usual house 'box' is fascinating. One of the things I love most, though, is when the people who live in the unusual homes talk about the joys and challenges - things you might not immediately think would be difficult. For a long period of time, I was sort of obsessed with yurts - and read a lot of blogs and articles from people talking about how much of a challenge it is to create liveable space within them, due to the curved walls. Furniture doesn't sit flush, it's difficult to break the space down for privacy (if you have kids or guests, for example). I love reading about the tiny house lifestyle, and reading what people love and what people miss the most from their previous larger homes. It's kind of amazing how, for the most part, we've all defaulted into living in fairly standardized housing - boxes with smaller boxes inside.
posted by VioletU at 5:39 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

These are really interesting (and sometimes awful) architecturally, but I'm not sure I'd like to a) live in one, or b) maintain one--I bet they all have some unique ongoing issues. I would love to see a similar list of more practical designs and building materials. I am really excited about prefab and the more far-out site-3d-printed possibilities.
posted by tybstar at 6:13 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd love to live in most of these. Anyplace that I can't see a road or another building is a-ok with me. Unless it's in a mosquito ridden swamp but other than that!
posted by fshgrl at 6:15 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is delicious. Thank you soooooooo much for posting. I want to live in all of these.
posted by hilaryjade at 7:32 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

These are really interesting (and sometimes awful) architecturally, but I'm not sure I'd like to a) live in one, or b) maintain one--I bet they all have some unique ongoing issues.

As a long time home owner the first thing I think of when looking at crazy houses is "who's going to fix that, and do you have any idea what the cost would be?" followed by "you know that roof leaks".

Having said that, these are pretty cool and a few of them look like the roof may not leak and I would enjoy them. And I don't need much coaxing to go off the grid and live in a forest.
posted by bongo_x at 8:24 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I really want to love earthships. I think the idea is awesome, as is the name. But they are so ugly.
posted by lollusc at 8:29 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Rounded walls do not lend themselves to furniture.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:13 PM on August 24, 2016

Another point about the one in the bamboo forest: every few decades in a stand of bamboo like that, all of the bamboo flowers and goes to seed, and then all of it dies. I don't know how long it takes for the seeds to take and the forest to regrow but I would imagine it's at least a couple of years.

This was a problem in China for the pandas; they were being kept in reserves, but once in a while all the bamboo in the entire reserve will die simultaneously, leaving the pandas with nothing to eat. Historically when this happened, all the pandas in that area would leave and move across country until they found another stand of bamboo which was out of phase -- or they'd try, and starve on the way. After the Chinese government began to manage them, this happened once and the Chinese had to capture the pandas and move them to another area where the bamboo was still alive. Ultimate it meant the nature reserve had to be a lot bigger than they originally thought.

That house ain't gonna be very scenic during the period when the bamboo is all dead.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:54 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I really want to love earthships. I think the idea is awesome, as is the name. But they are so ugly.

Also modern passive houses take less energy to keep warm than 70s-style earthships, if I'm correctly informed.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:32 AM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

1. This Hobbit Treehouse

Okay. It's an excellent beginning.

This gypsy wagon is the ultimate bohemian lover's dream. These gypsy caravans are making a big comeback among nature-loving enthusiasts who want a creative way to live off the beaten path.

Antiziganism and ethnic discrimination is optional and does not apply to affluent, whimsical white people who just want to cosplay imaginary characters, like Romani.
posted by sukeban at 1:56 AM on August 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

I agree with signal. Pre-net, I used to live on remote tropical islands as a by-product of my scuba diving job. After two months I'd be climbing the walls, jonesing for a library.
posted by doornoise at 2:39 AM on August 25, 2016

Rounded walls do not lend themselves to furniture.

Or at least, rounded walls do not lend themselves to square furniture. I've been in some octagonal and round houses (built by hippies back in the day), and they were all filled with built-in and custom furniture, because nothing made for a square room works very well in an irregular space.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:03 AM on August 25, 2016

the cob houses and earthships are often made with a lot of built in furniture to deal with the curves and funky angles. Sri Laurie Baker's green housing for the masses has some lovely examples
posted by BinGregory at 5:09 AM on August 25, 2016

Sure, these are great, as long as you don't need groceries, schools, a workshop, internet, or friends.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 6:40 AM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's also really hard to hang pictures on a rounded wall-- depending on the angle of the rounding, the picture will always hang funny. Geodesic domes, same problem.
posted by blnkfrnk at 7:03 AM on August 25, 2016

Or at least, rounded walls do not lend themselves to square furniture. I've been in some octagonal and round houses (built by hippies back in the day), and they were all filled with built-in and custom furniture, because nothing made for a square room works very well in an irregular space.

Some octagonal and round houses were built by non-hippies, even. Fad housing trends are nothing new.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:07 AM on August 25, 2016

Stand-alone, rural housing is less environmentally friendly than multi-family structures in cities in several ways, which makes the sneering at "highrises" in "concrete jungles" pretty amusing. If you're going to have a stand-alone house, you can make it more green -- but this is just a random collection of houses that have a "natural" aesthetic.

It's a typical poorly-thought listicle. Not that I blame the writer; they're probably just trying to eke out a living.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:37 AM on August 25, 2016

I have thought a lot about round rooms because of Enid Blyton (who has not dreamt of Mr Moonface's wonderful home for themselves??) and it all came down to me as a question of angles: you had different curves depending on the size of the room, so a small round room would need a rather curved cupboard and a big round room could take a gentler curve to fit snugly, and basically nothing would fit snugly against a wall unless it was built exactly to the dimensions of that room. I imagined that Mr Moonface's furniture either grew from the tree itself or that it was somewhat modular and frequently replaced as the tree grew.

There would be no way to have curved walls and standardized (ie: mass produced/affordable) furniture. And even if you could have custom built furniture very easily - part of the beauty of furniture is taking a beloved piece with personal or design history and meaning and putting it into a different setting.

Or: why the Far Away Tree is not the utopian vision it once seemed at the age of seven.

(I would totally vacation in all those places featured though!)
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:53 AM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's always interesting to see these lists as someone who lives where it gets seriously cold. All but the possibly the first and last example are constructed of materials that should be complete non starters when it is -30C. Sure a cob or rammed earth(earthship) walls are a couple feet thick but 24" of earth has a about the insulation value equivalent to about an inch of extruded polystyrene (blue/pink board) which isn't much at all. They are great where daily temperature swings make use of the energy storage capabilities of the mass (like deserts) but horrible here as much as I lust over the organic look of the designs they enable.
posted by Mitheral at 9:18 AM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Those who prefer their green fantasy homes with a modern aesthetic could lose a lot of time on sites like Arch Daily. Here's the Tower House and the Pierre.
posted by BinGregory at 6:40 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Holy shit BinGregory, The Pierre is amazing. Wonder how rich I'd have to get to build me one of those. I'm in lurv.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 10:32 PM on August 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Real "green" buildings:

http://www.passipedia.org/examples/residential_buildings

Boring-looking, aren't they.
posted by anthill at 12:15 PM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I could live in the Hanssen-Höppener Passive House.
posted by Mitheral at 6:24 PM on August 27, 2016