... odd

the top one looks like it has shark tails... I thought building on a body of water disrupted the ecosystem.

Haha, you spled wethly rong

I thought the top one looked like a camouflaged frog about to take a dump.

Just goes to show you - just because you've got lots of money - doesn't mean you're smart.

I'm betting for $15 mil - I could design a much sweeter house than that - and it'd be "green".

I've seen better looking homes in New Orleans.

@djdare: That's an issue with people. They only think of energy use and recycling when thinking of "green." They don't consider the fact that the building is planted right in the middle of a marsh or the fact that the dark portions of the roof are going to emit heat, or that the concrete in the pond is going to warm the water around the house.

Nothing says 'treehugger' like blowing 15 mil, or probably approximately 30 trees worth of paper on a house. A 'green' house. That sounds oddly familiar, the phrase 'green house'... now I wonder what other 'green house' exists that 15 million could have been better spent on? AHA! The White House. No wait that's not green. It's white. Like paper. Paper was used to get this 'green' house. I bet it was 'green' paper.

@oyumurtaci: and you sir need to stop dabbling in the other green stuff easily rolled in paper.

[www.pot-party.com]

@male roof blower (CFB): and word, I'm not saying I'm "green" or buy into any of this stuff... as my record in previous posts makes very clear, I just think it's funny when people pretend.

@djdare: Dude, there's nothing wrong with actually trying to be green; it's not inherently uncool to be environmentally friendly/conscious.

No need to abandon trying to do right by the world just because one also enjoys exposing hypocrisy, lunacy, and idiocy where it exists.

@oyumurtaci: 'Paper was used to get this 'green' house. I bet it was 'green' paper.'

Not in the UK - we have real money here.

well if they have 15 mill to blow on a house I'm sure they can afford the malaria and or west nile treatment that living on that dirty pond will eventually lead to.

Dumb dumb dumb. I do work in the construction trade from time to time and when I look at this design all I can picture is the 8 dumpsters of lumber cut offs, specialty made, one off concrete forms and about a 400 kilos of special use piping cut offs.

You want a real "green" house? Build it half under grade and out of sod. Minimal eco foot print and piece of cake to heat.

$15 million dollars donated to World Land Trust will save 150,000 acres of land for perpetuity...

[www.worldlandtrust.org]

$15,000,000 / 1000 years = $15,000/year of energy.

At first it seemed like a short time, but it's not a bad of the cuff estimate for a big house. Well done Sean.

I bet it would be possible to make a $1.5 million home in the right area that would pay for itself in a much shorter period of time, perhaps a couple lifetimes. As the technology continues to improve, it might even approach a good economic decision. Think of the possibilities...

If its a business expense + good publicity for someone in the entertainment industry then of course!

They will indubitably brag about this while flying around in their own private Jet powered by fossil fuel.

I think some dumb rich dude got ripped off...

@seanmac: uhh I'm no expert, but you can buy 15 acres in my neck of the woods for $50,000 or so, which means you could build a house... a normal house, and put solar panels on a good portion of the rest, and for a $1.5 million initial investment, I would assume you could recoup the costs in like 5 years... assuming you get paid by the electric company for energy put back into the grid... just saying.

Meh, I'd buy this over a small-dick Veyron.

@Oldbrass: you mean, something like this ?

Is the top picture the "Master Chief" version?

Why do I think this "anonymous treehugger" is someone from Radiohead?

Drape a couple of vines over that thing, give it swamp-lowering ability and I think we've found our Hall of Doom!

Now if only we had a way to foil those pesky SuperFriends...

just give that 15 mil to charity...wtf!

@hmooby: or give the money to the treehugger foundation...it'll shut them up for a while. Oh wait, they can't accept it because money comes from trees...

That's a very expensive hunting duck blind.

what a moron. that's the fugliest 'house' i've ever seen.

@Oldbrass: Judging by the price listed and the unique shape of the house, I bet most of this will be built in a factory and have very limited waste.

Just checked the designer's website, the structure is made of a bunch of custom laminated veneer lumber beams which will definitely be built off site, assembled onsite then shingled.

I don't think I'd pay $15M to live inside a Protoss spaceship.

this is obviously CGI.

@Gann: Yah... And the custom made laminate shapes are going to be cut out of what, exactly? Straight lines = more efficient use of timber.

good lord it's ugly and it looks rather small...

@Oldbrass: trees of course. curved lines = same effeciency with different shape as straight lines. They're not cutting the shapes out of a rectilinear piece of wood, they're molding long, thin, rectilinear pieces of wood into curves. Like plywood, this minimizes inconsistancies in the member and requires less material to hold the same load. It could possibly be more efficient than custom framing it out of nominal lumber.
Here is a good example of curved glulam beams.
Laminated veneer members work the same, only the 'plys' are thinner, allowing a tighter curvature and higher strength.

If I had that kind of money, I suppose I might pay that much to make sure it was NEVER BUILT.

I Like the camo-Crab look, but pft the whole eco thing is worthless.

Give me a big, energy sucking LCD covered Crab house.

Awesome! I'd live there!

Man, I love that house. It looks like a supervillain's lair.

@Ubik2501: Very nice reference.

wagers on World of Starcraft as the next big MMOG?