The house looks wonderful, but they are still doing what everyone else in suburbia is doing: fragmenting the landscape for their private castle while necessitating a high carbon cost for transportation too and fro. It can't be that green if you have to drive to it, and it can't be green if it is accelerating exurban outgrowth. What we need is fewer houses in the country and more public transportation access to natural areas, not more architects building their eco-utopias "next to" nature. (I'm close to thinking you shouldn't live in the country unless you are willing to farm it).

Houses go up in suburbia when the infrastructure allows for it: highways, fire and police budgets, sewer and water, etc.

Infrastructure can be limited by budgetary allocations or by zoning, albeit drawing a line on the map which says that castles in the trees are not allowed here. This is what happens in Europe and around Portland OR, but almost no where else in North America does local government have the guts to try. That leaves budgetary control, especially the highway lobby as the target left standing.

I agree James.

LA: I agree too, but these houses work as test beds. Architects do not get many opportunities early in their career to do buildings from the ground up, and while it is hard to justify second homes (I know, I have one) they are still worth looking at if they introduce new ideas. And if you are going to build one it might as well be green.

If you are going to build one regardless of whether it is the green choice or not, then yes a green home is better than one that is not. And I am not opposed to people building homes in the countryside if that is going to be their home, not some place to go to occasionally. And I agree with James that if one is going to live in the countryside, then one should try to live sustainably off that land - grow food if climate permits or grow trees if climate does not, try to generate own electricity with wind, sun or water, harvest rainwater, compost, etc. And I can imagine that this couple may be thinking of building this house in the countryside which will in future become their primary and only residence, but in the meantime they must continue renting something in the city for job reasons to avoid having to commute back and forth daily from far out in the countryside to the city. And I also agree that in many instances it is worth building something to test new ideas, concepts, technologies to see how they perform andor how they affect the environment - what is learned can help make general construction greener and have an overall positive environmental impact. I do not know what this couple was, is thinking. They may be testing some concepts - or maybe not. They may or may not plan to make that a permanent home. I will not criticize these people without knowing exactly why they built that house. I would rather assume that they are good people trying to do right by the environment. But I agree with the general 'jist' of James' post that you have to have a good reason and good plan for building and living in the countryside; otherwise, one may be more harm than good toward the environment.

As to the fact that you yourself have a second home in the countryside, I once wrote a post decrying second homes that was indirectly related to you owning one. My primary intention in that post, as in this one, was not to criticize you (or this couple) for I do not know the exact circumstances of the building of the countryside home. My intention is to impress upon readers that second home ownership, especially ones in the countryside, is something society needs to move away from as something normal and acceptable for environmental reasons.

i'm building a home in the woods. i bought lots of land which i will spend the rest of my life nurturing with indiginous plants and protecting from irresponsible logging, invasive species, and further development. i can telecommute and my composting toilet will be legal. i chose a site which was formerly farmland and already has site infrastructure. city living (where i am now) is often not very green at all. renters have no control of overheating their pre-war apartments. they can't invest in energy-efficient windows or add insulation and landlords have no incentive to do it either. i've never seen so much otherwise recyclable or compostable waste go straight into the trash as i do in this city. the sewer systems get overtaxed in rains every year and dump human waste directly into the rivers. it reminds me of hog-confinement lots (like other animals, free-range people are often healthier than the industrial city counterparts). as a renter, i have no option to generate my own energy. there is a common out-of-site-out-of-mind mentality. residents have to go out of their way to understand where their food comes from. most people eat out every day and if you've ever worked in restaurants, you know how wasteful they can be. many offices run air-conditioners in the middle of winter because it gets so hot and windows don't open. each person has food delivered for lunch which is generally triple-packaged in plastics and paper. they claim they can't make their food at home because their apartments are so small. they don't know what food is in season because they're out of touch with natural rythms. yes, a lot of things are theoretically fixable and there are clear benefits for both sides, but i think the true reality is that my future in the country will most likely be greener than staying put. i know there are a lot of provacative statements there, but the debate is usually far too limited in scope (and theoretical) than the truth.

i agree with everyone here! lots of well-reasoned arguments.