Comments on: CASA VERDE: Sunset’s Green Dream Home in San Francisco

By: vicky

vicky — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:43:12 +0000

The wind turbine and solar panels are not creating 1 KW of electricity….all of it is coming from an illegal cable tapping into the neighbors PG and E panel.

see:
http://services.sfgov.org/dbipts/default.aspx?page=AddressComplaint&ComplaintNo=200989986

By: mikeinsf

mikeinsf — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:55:07 +0000

I don’t agree with you at all surfeit. The builders of this home obviously have the means to build any kind of house they’d like. Even if this is somewhat of an urban McMansion, I’d much rather see new developments built like this one, with high percentages of reclaimed materials and efficiency. The owners can afford more square footage. So what? This house can’t be judged on the scale of homes for the masses because this is not a home most people could afford. I don’t think anyone is trying to sell this as a home for the masses.That doesn’t mean that it fails to accomplish goals that make it much better for the environment than other upscale urban dwellings.

Everyone doesn’t have to live down to the lowest common denominator in order to tread more lightly on the environment. I’m not sharing a 1000 sqft apartment with a roommate because I want to. I’m saving for my first home in SF, which will be modest and probably in the 1200 sqft range. If I could afford to build my own home I would, and I’d want to do it with a balance of amenities and environmental responsibility. I think this home achieves that.

By: surfeit

surfeit — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:45:58 +0000

To me, this “dream home” embodies the incredible excess that has become tied to the “green consumer” movement. Sensitive to the environment? Perhaps. Sensitive to the neighborhood and the surrounding community? Doesn’t seem like it. At 3,700 square feet this home is vastly larger than any single family dwelling in the vicinity — anything that big has been divided into 2 or 3 apartments to accommodate the density of the Mission district, and San Francisco in general.

Also, is this really considered a renovation? There’s very little on the exterior (which I’ve seen up close) to indicate that pieces of the preexisting building were kept intact when constructing this house. I’d have liked for this article to discuss more about the building process, the materials that were used, what was discarded, what was reincorporated, and generally why this place deserves to be celebrated as a pinnacle of green building. Barcelona chairs, Noguchi tables, and an in-home spa do not a sustainable house make.

This strikes me as another example of a wealthy homeowner and developer justifying their excess and evading the guilt of overconsumption with a green story. It’s great that the place generates much of its own energy, but as an expression of big-picture sustainability (that being not just attention to the environment but also to people, context, history, urbanism, and a long view on the future), it misses the point.

By: ktgrnwd

ktgrnwd — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:03:00 +0000

It’s whimsical, it’s fun and most relevant, the owner took great care in considering it’s design regarding the environment, making M.E. (mother earth) the major benefactor for this project. Who cares that the aesthetics don’t suit all tastes!

By: DeadPanDan

DeadPanDan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:35:37 +0000

It looks happy to me.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:39:17 +0000

hah, it is very miss-matched isnt it…
its got some cool funky things in it though.
not being all that familiar with the area, it looks huge on the outside. i think 2 families could easily fit into that space.

By: organicgrid

organicgrid — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:18:51 +0000

Actually the design is horrible to be honest with you. It looks the architect used just about every design style & the entire color palette currently available to man to create this monstrosity.