Looking Ahead: The Next 10 Years of Green Building

Enlarge Image Image Gallery David Orr oversaw the design and construction of the $7.2 million Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, described by The New York Times as "the most remarkable" of a new generation of college buildings and by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of 30 "milestone buildings" of the 20th century. The solar-powered building shares its excess energy with the community. Photo Courtesy Oberlin College

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To mark Natural Home’s 10th anniversary, we asked as visionary group of architects and educators to predict what will happen to housing over the next decade. The insights they share are surprisingly full of optimism, creativity and hope.

Our Panelists:

Gil Friend, President and Chief Executive Officer, Natural Logic 

Pliny Fisk, Fellow, Center for Housing and Urban Development; Fellow, Sustainable Urbanism Center for Healthy Systems Design; Co-director, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

Sarah Susanka, Architect and best-selling author, The Not So Big House series (The Taunton Press)

David W. Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Senior Adviser to the President, Oberlin College; Author of five books, including Design on the Edge: The Making of a High-Performance Building (The MIT Press, 2006)

Michelle Kaufmann, Founder and Chairman, Michelle Kaufmann Designs; Author, PreFab Green (Gibbs Smith, 2009)

Sergio Palleroni, Professor and Fellow, Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices, Portland State University; Author, Studio at Large: Architecture in Service of Global Communities (University of Washington Press, 2004)

NH: How do you think housing will change in the next 10 years? 

DAVID ORR: There are going to be two major revolutions in the next 10 years. One is that the quality of construction is going to change because of rising fuel costs and an influx of better technology for housing. Building a net-zero house is now a reality.

The second thing is the layout and design of communities. Fuel costs are going to drive people back into inner city areas, and I think suburban sprawl will be a thing of the past. We're seeing that now.

SARAH SUSANKA:  I think that the biggest changes we're going to see are that what we now call "green" or "sustainable" design will automatically be part of the mix. Putting in a good furnace or additional insulation is just going to be one of the basics. One of the things driving that is the public catching on that it makes a big difference to how big their utility bills are. But I think it's just going to become completely normal.

From my perspective, good design is going to be fundamental. In my mind, good design comes with smaller and better designed. Tailored rather than lots of space without much definition. All of the things we're seeing in computer-aided design that allows people to have a sense of what a house is going to look like before it's done will give people better tools for assessing what makes sense.

Beauty matters. Beauty is one of the most sustainable things you can do. People are gradually realizing that if something is beautiful and it inspires them, they and future generations are going to look after it. The mindset of looking into the future and realizing that what we build today needs to last for the long haul is really starting to sink in.