Often, as we scour magazines, web sites, etc. for interesting green home ideas, we come across homes and products that are far out of our price range. Far, far, far.
But that doesn't always mean we pass them by. Sometimes these budget-breakers are just beautiful to look at, or they inspire a more affordable hack.
These 2 homes, currently under development by Jivaka, LLC in Austin, (touted as the Healthiest Homes in America by AOL) fall into that budget-breaker category. They're 4,100 and 4,400 square feet and they're being sold for $2.5 million a piece.
(Yes, we're begging the question: Can a $2.5 million - 4,500 square foot home even fall into the "green home" category?)
But we still think they're interesting for a couple of reasons: the 30-foot swimming pool is using copper ionization filtration for the first time in a residential application (something we'd never heard of previously), and the common-area flooring is actually made of pebbles. We just wish we could see these sorts of details a little more clearly and we wish there was more information explaining why these homes are so healthy.
What do you think -- are these homes even worth looking at? (Here's the slideshow -- you be the judge.)
Via AOL
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
On a smaller/more affordable scale those could be VERY green homes. Now they're feeling more greenwashed.
http://embritadesign.blogspot.com
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Agree with Emmie (and yeah, that was my first thought too - 4500sqft is green???) I notice that AOL's calling them the *healthiest* homes but that's not necessarily the greenest - maybe it just means the flooring doesn't offgas and the pool doesn't have chlorine (being, as you said, they don't explain).
And yeah, I'd be interested to know, say, how much a pebble floor costs per sqft vs. some conventional flooring choices. It may indeed be more affordable but we're just looking at the package, which is rather large.
Another question to beg is whether buying a new home is the greenest option to begin with. It's good that more green products are being developed but better to use up what you already have.
view whytephoenix's profile