AIA provides sponsorship to foster sustainability in residential design   
 The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., hopes to convince the American public that green is not only a socially conscious choice, but a relatively affordable one as well. The museum for the first time is exploring the growing mandate for residential green design through "The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design." The milestone exhibition will remain on view for a year-May 20, 2006-June 3, 2007-and feature a full-sized house plus exhibits of 21 green houses from around the globe.

Visitors to The Green House will encounter a full-size recreation of the California-based architect Michelle Kaufmann's Glidehouse, a single-story, prefab Modern house graced with glass curtain walls and louvered-wood sliding panels, which, incidentally, comes in at $120 per square foot. Visitors can walk through its great room and kitchen space, laid out to maximize breezes and minimize the need for artificial lighting. They can examine firsthand the built-in cabinets, bamboo flooring, carpet tiles of recycled materials, countertops made from recycled paper, and furniture of organic textiles and sustainably harvested/reclaimed wood. Cut-away walls and windows allow glimpses of the roof and wall structure. Water-saving fixtures and a tankless water heater outfit the bathroom. Walls are finished in low-VOC paint.

High tech and high touch
The architecture firm that designed and installed this 7,000-square-foot exhibition is Lewis.Surumaki.Lewis, New York City. Organizer for The Green House is Curator Donald Albrecht, the exhibition director and catalog editor of "The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention," a traveling exhibition organized by the Library of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany (1997-2005). A noted designer of architecture-themed exhibitions, he also writes widely on design and architecture. "This show illustrates that environmental priorities and the highest aesthetic standards are fully complementary," says Albrecht. "Today we are seeing architects and interior designers combining new, high-tech materials and old-fashioned architectural wisdom to create houses that are glamorous, comfortable, and sit lightly on the land."

The exhibition catalog, The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture-coauthored by the exhibition's consulting curators, Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne, and copublished by the National Building Museum and Princeton Architectural Press-features more than 35 residences in 15 countries, with designers ranging from starchitects to little-known practitioners. Visitors to the exhibition will receive a free resource newsletter that includes a glossary of green terms; directories of leading architects, interior designers, builders, advocacy groups, and others; and listings of ways to get additional information on green building and design.

An array of varied houses
The Green House exhibit highlights 21 homes considered by the curators to be especially interesting and beautiful. The curators displayed the projects according to the environment to which they respond.