Get Sust! Issue 25

Super-size homes

Can you be big AND green? That’s a question architects in the United States are pondering. The United States’ National Association of Home Builders says the average home was 2,300 square feet in 2005, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970. Some towns and cities have minimum area requirements, making it nearly impossible to build a very small home.

In a review of green architecture, the US publication “emagazine” talked to a number of architects who are driving forward the green agenda - despite the national government.

On the tendency for super-size homes, one said: “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to put a small solar system in a 10,000-square-foot house” adding that many home-owners would have greater environmental impact by looking at their car journeys than installing renewables.

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Check out the “green homes” issue of “emagazine” at www.emagazine.com.