Can We Build A Brighter Shade Of Green?
I'm sure that everyone has heard of green design, and incorporating the green movement into the building of homes. However, many people, myself included, have never heard of the passive building movement. The article in the New York Times entitled, Can We Build A Brighter Shade Of Green, details the efforts of a Boston couple to build a home that is certified as a passive home. A passive home is one that is carefully designed to require minimal amounts of heat and energy in order to properly function. They build these homes with walls three times thicker than the average wall, with heavy duty insulation and carefully calculated window placement. These windows face the sun in order to obtain the optimal amount of heat energy from the sun. With these incredibly thick walls and carefully placed windows, the home is able to retain the optimal amount of heat. These homes are very well suited for cold weather areas, though plans are still being formulated create passive homes that will be effective in warmer climates. Some of the downsides to these passive homes however are their initial costs as well as the lack of properly trained professionals that can built them and required materials. Because these passive homes have not been widely incorporated into building designs in the United States, there is a lack of readily available materials. The initial costs of the passive homes are also rather high, however in time the incredible efficiency of the home makes up for the initial cost. These homes have incredibly low energy costs, because require so little heat. One of the unfortunate things about these passive homes and buildings is that they have yet to really be incorporated into design plans in the United States. The United States has only thirteen certified passive buildings, while Europe has over 25,000 certified passive buildings. The success of these structures in Europe should certainly prove to us in the United States that this is a great way to create a more sustainable way of life. The article states that these passive homes use 90% less heating and cooling energy than the conventional home. This is certainly an indication that we need to really begin to incorporate these ideas into our building codes in order to help the environmental cause.


I found this article to be incredibly interesting, mostly because is had never heard of the concept of the passive house. I think that it is certainly something that should be incorporated into the way that we build our homes. It was very surprising to me that Europe was so far ahead of us in the environmental movement and building these passive homes. It was shocking to know that there are only 13 certified passive buildings in the United States, while Europe has over 25,000. It is sad to think that we are so behind in this movement and that we have not made more of an effort to live sustainably. I would definitely like to learn more about the standards and structure of a passive building. What I am really wondering is whether or not they have been able to come up with a solution for warm climates as well. Because with its technology to hold in heat, it would certainly not be an effective home in the summer months of an area like Suffolk. I would also like to learn a little bit more about the way that they calculate where windows should be placed on the home in order to maximize sun exposure during the winter months, because I am sure it is very carefully calculated. Finally I really think that there should be more of an effort made to get this information out to everyone, because I had never heard of this prior to reading the article.

Zeller, Tom. "Can We Build A Brighter Shade of Green?." The New York Times. N.p., 25 Sept. 2010. Web. 7 Oct. 2010. .