Build it (green) and they will come
Tue, Sep 22 2009 at 12:07 PM EST
By now, you may have heard about Greensburg, Kansas, a close-knit, not-so-green community that was virtually wiped off the map when an EF5 tornado leveled 95 percent of the town and killed 11 residents. Over two years later, Greensburg is emerging from the rubble as “Greentown,” a hotbed of eco-optimism, community spirit, and LEED building practices.
There are plenty of awesome projects in the works for this “model green town for the future” and one of the most intriguing is the Chain of EcoHomes Competition. The competition, part of a partnership between Greensburg Greentown and Freegreen.com, invites an international roster of architects to submit green home plans that they’d like to see be built as part of a 12-home rebuilding project. The public can vote, via the Chain of EcoHomes website, on the designs that they like the best. After the votes are tallied up, a jury — including green building luminaries like Michelle Kaufmann — deliberate on the winning designs. Three winners are chosen; all receive cash prizes and the top three will be built in Greensburg as part of the Chain of EcoHomes project.
Summarizes the Chain of EcoHomes website:
The three new homes would be part of GreenTown’s Chain of Eco-Homes Project. We are developing up to a total of twelve homes in Greensburg, each of which will serve as a “Living Laboratory”, featuring a variety of building techniques, sizes, prices, energy efficiency features, and green living products and services. Each home will be unique, and each will be available both as an informational center and as eco-lodging where people can experience green living first hand. This will be the first such project in that nation, and will be key to developing eco-tourism in Greensburg, Kansas.
Go ahead and check out the hundreds of submissions in the running (a few random ones that caught my eye are pictured above and below) and vote for your favorite. I'm still looking them all over. Which green house design strikes your fancy?
Via [Michelle Kaufmann]
Renderings: Chain of EcoHomes
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Little Plastic-Loofah Houses For You and Me
On a parallel note, I just saw a fantastic video about how loofah and recycled plastic are being used to construct low-cost homes in Paraguay -- http://bit.ly/b9c5T