My Critique of the Living and Hybrid Homes

Although the Living and Hybrid homes were designed with the idea of sustainability in mind for almost every detail, there are a few qualities of both homes which were not so carefully considered. I believe that both homes are currently very marketable for people with a generous amount of income and ability to build or buy one of these new residences. However, there are two problems that arise from this.

One is that because both the Living Home and Hybrid Homes are available for a only select group of people, the sustainable practices they promote can be easily bought by families of considerable wealth but not by the general populous. Even if a family would be able to afford one of these homes, it is unlikely that these sustainable dwellings will spur a sustainable housing movement because of the mere fact that common families would not be able to sell their home and move somewhere where these homes can be easily produced. Because these homes are not wide spread, each individual home's impact on the larger scale of community sustainability is small and restricted to the immediate site. In order for these homes to be entirely valued as sustainably constructed and maintained is if their impact spreads beyond the reaches of the wealthy.

The second issue is that although these homes may be marketable (for a select group of people) now, their future value may not be promising. As this goes with most non-traditional, modernly designed homes, technology may progress too soon for these homes to be attractive to buyers in the long run. This will affect their market value in the future, as projected property values are important for home buyers and owners to reflect on.

There is another drawback to these homes regarding the implications of development trends. Considering the Living Home in particular, the scale of the home is fairly large and spacious and unlike the Hybrid Home, its construction does not account for square footage as sustainability criteria. Relevant to the larger context of urban sprawl, our development patterns affect the ability of our urban settlements to take advantage of open space, cropland, and ecological services in general. After touring the Living Home and Hybrid Home website and videos, I did not find that the homes were constructed using an infill development strategy or if square footage was considered for the Living Home. If the construction process of both homes were mindful of outward expansion and site-scale was considered for the Living home as being detrimental to sustainability, I would be able to award their construction as more truly sustainable.