RODALE NEWS, ALLENTOWN, PA—An ecofreindly home doesn't always look the way you'd expect. Some green homes are made of unusual materials, like straw bales. Earthship homes are famously constructed using used tires. But there are all sorts of design ideas, and more and more architects are taking up the challenge. That much was evident last year when Rodale.com visited The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. The traveling exhibit featured models of some of the most energy-efficient, beautifully designed homes on the planet.

For example, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. (Prototype for Advanced Ready-Made Amphibious Small-Scale Individual Temporary Ecological) Project is a small family living space in an urban section of the Netherlands. The project seeks to build homes out of recycled building materials on former industrial areas or atop existing buildings, where they can act as a parasite by using existing elevators and heating and cooling units. (Plus, the views are great up there!) The LoLoma 5 Lofts project challenged architects to deal with the heat of the sun without resorting to energy-hogging cooling units. The northern façade is mostly glass, with upper windows covered in metal scrims to protect from scorching sun. Its outdoor living spaces can double as sleeping porches, and indoor lofts have floor-to-floor ceiling operable windows, allowing residents to use natural cooling rather than air-conditioning most of the year.

Keep your home healthy and green:

The Kitchen	The Bathroom
The Patio	The Living Room

THE DETAILS: Many green architects see marrying energy efficiency with great design not as a fad, but as critical to our survival. "You cannot overestimate the relevance of highly energy-efficient buildings and cities as a goal and road to a livable future," says architect Joachim Achenbach, designer of House with Shades, one of the homes featured in the traveling exhibit. The eco-home he designed is located in Southern Germany and features huge windows that act as a glass curtain to collect solar energy, with large mechanical blinds to protect from the summer sun. More technical features include a mechanically controlled ventilation system with a thermal exchange unit, and photovoltaic cells and solar panels on the flat roof of the building to collect electrical energy and heat water.

Though it may seem expensive to retrofit or build a green house these days, Achenbach says the extra money invested up front will pay dividends in years to come. "The question is, do you have short-term objectives or long-term objectives?" Achenbach says. "You have to invest maybe 10 to 20 percent more money to build or retrofit a green house, than you did for, let me call it an 'old school house,'" he notes. "But the fact is, green houses are fit for not only today's requirements, but the future's, too, including independence from the rising costs of fossil fuels."

Not looking to build a new home at the moment? Here are things you can do to green your existing house:

• Know what the priorities are. Whether you can spend a few hundred dollars on a project or several thousand, it only makes sense to apply your resources to the aspects of your home that will have the biggest impact on your energy use (and costs). According to Achenbach, the following are universally valid rules of thumb that apply to a green home for the average homeowner:

1.Optimize the insulation and thermal glazing of your solar heating systems and efficient electrical devices. Shop around until you find a professional who will take all your needs into account and not push a one-size-fits-all solution.