If you liked our article on 34 Stunning LEED Platinum Projects, you'll probably like this one, too.  As with the other, this is a retrospective on the past year.  We've seen some awesome green homes and are constantly inspired:  So much creativity, innovation, and style!  That said, unless you're living in a cave, you'll probably note that most websites are looking back — it's a tradition this time of year.  For intance, the Wall Street Journal showcased a list of what they call A Decade's Most Remarkable Homes.  Michelle Kaufmann contributed thoughts to WSJ for their article and then decided to create her very own list of Top 10 Housing Designs from the Past Decade.  We're keeping our list limited to built homes shown on this site in 2008:

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When we last brought news of BrightBuilt Barn in September, it was only partially constructed.  Now it's all built and looks quite good.  Its trademark feature is the exterior LED lightskirt, which was designed to change color depending on the home's energy use.  GREEN means the BrightBuilt Barn is generating more energy than it consumes; YELLOW indicates a borderline condition; and RED means the energy usage is higher than required to meet the yearly net energy goal.  And like the lightskirt, everything about this home has been planned with meticulous care to create a livable, sustainable, replicable, flexible, and educational net-zero energy home.

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If you read tech blogs, you may have noticed that Facebook Connect is spreading like crazy.  We’re happy to announce that the commenting system that we use, Disqus, is now supporting Facebook Connect.  Unfortunately (and as is always the case), this new feature is kind of in beta: there are two glitches.  First, if you already have a Disqus profile and you’ve linked up Facebook in your Disqus profile, your Facebook Connect comments will be under a different profile.  Second, posting comments on Jetson Green may, in the future, allow you to publish the same in your Facebook profile news feed, but not for the time being.  The Disqus team is working on these features.  If you want to start commenting with Facebook Connect, here’s how:

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• Eco-friendly administration is good for builders.
• Smart home to build enthusiasm for green lifestyle.
• 2008: the year that substance and sustainability reigned.
• Can you superinsulate that home, please?
• Students plan a green makeover for old factory.
• Energy saving techniques for small business buildings.
• Empyrean (maker of Dwell Homes) enters receivership.

Update – 12/29/08: added one more that’s now going for Platinum.

There’s so much innovation in the green building space, it’s pretty hard to keep up with it all.  I mean, check out these articles below.  In the past year alone, we’ve discussed at least thirty-four different LEED Platinum projects — some are done, some are under way, and some are still on the boards.  Wow, what an incredible year in green building news!  Innovation at the highest rung of the USGBC’s LEED system continues.  And so you know, we plan to pay more attention to the greenest of green projects over the next year.  Keep us informed if your project is a legit Platinum contender, we’re certainly interested:

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the crew here at Jetson Green.  Stay safe, chill out, and enjoy family and friends.  We’ll be around, but a little slowish due to intermittent access to internet. 

Photo by kevindooley.