Lately I’ve felt rather exhausted by the idea of green building design. Put a building in a tree, bury it or cover it in some unidentified field of green fuzzy stuff and it’s suddenly sustainable, no matter how absurd the concept may be. When I saw this sketch from one of my favorite sites, Variations on Normal, I couldn’t help but laugh in how appropriate it was in it’s absurdity. But let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to sled down that hill? I’ll take the penthouse suite please.

Most of the time I love looking at things that go way outside the box because, why not? It’s good fun. But so many times in architectural designs plants have become an accessory like wall covering or paint and gets tacked on in the most ridiculous ways and expected to survive or even produce food. Reaching beyond working solutions has almost become the norm and the photoshop renderings littering the blogosphere are beginning to look eerily similar in both style, content and that infamous greening filter. I find myself looking at drawings and constantly asking, what IS that patch of green? Lately reading has been less inspiring and therefore blogging as well which has sadly taken a backseat to my busy schedule as of late. Time to get back to it, things are piling up.

And so there’s my rant for the month. Moving on.