The New Trophy House. Green?

An environmentally friendly, LEED-certified home in
Venice, Calif., designed by Melinda Gray, an architect.

The New York Times offered the idea that a green house is the new trophy home. It is a good review of the state of green home building in the United States. They suggest that "green homes are a new arena for LEED ratings, environmental badges of honor usually given to commercial buildings."

While other ratings are widely recognized, like the federal Energy Star for appliances, the LEED brand stands apart because of its four-level rankings — certified, silver, gold and platinum — and third-party verification. So far this year, 10,250 new home projects have registered for the council’s consideration, compared with 3,100 in 2006, the first year of the pilot home-rating system. Custom-built homes dominate the first batch of certified dwellings. Today, dinner-party bragging rights are likely to include: “Let me tell you about my tankless hot water heater.” Or “what’s the R value of your insulation?”

As a firm committed to green building, we sort of long for the day when certification will be irrelevant, that architects will simply build green because they should. The article is helpful in providing an overall picture of what green means. We noticed, too, that in the "Comment" section a green battle rages!