Trophy houses and the planet


Does anyone really look at the environmental impact of the oh-so-refined new mansions?
Daniel Askt makes some very good points about conspicuous environmentalism.

These houses aren't just ridiculous; they're monuments to sanctimony. If architecture is frozen music, these places are congealed piety, demonstrating with embarrassing concreteness the glaring hypocrisy of upper-class environmentalism. The sad thing is that, by pouring so much money into ostentatious eco-design, the people who built homes like this have purchased status at the cost of doing some real environmental good.

Bear in mind that merely building a gigantic house consumes an enormous amount of energy and other resources, which is why it costs so much to do so. Situating a home all by itself on a large piece of land, far from the pre-existing community infrastructure, does not make it a model of environmentally conscious design. And having a second home--which takes nearly a day of driving to reach--is unlikely to make a dent in global warming.

Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting a large house, lots of privacy or a vacation home, but how can we pretend that these places exemplify some standard of eco-design that others should aspire to? In the first place, most people can't remotely afford it. Consider that Sim Van der Ryn, a California architect who pioneered environmentally conscious building, once designed an astonishing 15,000-square-foot "green" residence--a home, in other words, the size of three NBA basketball courts.

He's got a point. These huge houses aren't green as much as they are altars of success. The "sacrifice" (which is not a sacrifice and which most people can't afford) is meant to give some of the wealthy a reason to feel good about themselves.

Guilt. It's the new gold leaf.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - January 13, 2006 at 04:40 AM  Tag


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