Blog Post

Stupid Green Buildings

We've all had this conversation: is a huge single family green home really green? A new building in the desert? A man-made island in Dubai? The blog Green Building Elements has collected the 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth, including a BP gas station, a golf lodge, a single-family skyscraper, and a car dealership. A green building is better than a non-green building, in just about any situation. But many of these buildings raise the question: is greener always better? Or even green?

Published February 18, 2009

(2009, February 18). Stupid Green Buildings. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/blog/stupid-green-buildings

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Comments

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 18, 2009 - 5:04 pm

The greenest buildings are the one's that don't get built.

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 19, 2009 - 4:45 am

Wow:

So instead of lauding any of these people for doing something to help the plan is to excoriate them so that there is no incentive for progress made toward helping the environment.

If you truly want to be green then stop all newsletters, email, cell phone, web site, and other forms of communication, occupy no buildings including homes, and go live only as a hunter gatherer. Your presence on the internet consumes more annual energy and causes more carbon pollution than most of the projects listed if you assign the true cost of the facilities, people, and resources.

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO PROPOGATE THIS TYPE OF EXTREMISM.

Andy Hoover
Principal
The BEST Consultant, Inc.
Office: 678-200-7648
Fax:678-827-0574
Cell: 678-793-1159

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 19, 2009 - 7:46 am

Andy, you are such a radical! Love it!

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 24, 2009 - 1:21 pm

I work with clients who are relatively mainstream and I've found that taking the extreme route is seriously bad for sales. I understand where people are coming from but it can actually turn folks away. If we want to include more people we have to be more accepting of different opinions and ideas.
On a similar topic I received a sales flyer from Duron Paints today promoting a biodegradable paint tray and it just left me thinking... what happens to all the acrylic or alkyd resins after the paint tray degrades...
We just need to sift through the garbage and try to educate about what is really making a difference.

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 25, 2009 - 5:16 am

One of the hard questions I think the Green Building Elements post raises is whether we should be pushing harder on the "why" question: why build this building at all? In the case of a gas station, for example, is it serving the surrounding community? Is it moving us toward a lower carbon footprint?

I've recently become interested in the challenge of getting both designers and clients to think beyond the building and its environmental footprint to the community and its footprints, both environmental and social. So how do you talk to clients about thinking beyond their particular building? How do you ask the tough questions (why build new, why build here, etc.) without driving the client away?

BuildingGreen Basic Member

February 24, 2009 - 8:53 am

Simmer down Andy, I know you mean well but the post does point out an absurd fringe of green building and development where things "push" at some folks philosphical buttons. As we move away from checklist accounting like LEED, and more towards Low/No Carbon solutions where everything is on the table and the numbers have to get real, science will sift out the pretend green from the true green. Then we can have better answers to guide future projects. I've always been a fan of getting "credit" where credit is due, but some of these examples remind me of the GM Cadillac Hybrid Esclade. It's green maybe compared to its planet sucking conventional counterpart, but not much else. ~ Bion