Green House

It occurred to me, as I've been thinking about all this "life" stuff that I used to spend so much time getting excited about (before grad school distracted me with its demands), that I'd spent years designing houses and looking at house plans and ideas, and I'd always wanted to do a "green" house. Passive and active solar, earth sheltered and/or green-roofed (sod and plants), with all sorts of other green amenities like bamboo and cork floors and radiant floor heating (under the bamboo not the cork due to cork's inherent insulating properties.)

However, this flies in the face of the Craftsman-style ideal of using local materials. Neither cork or bamboo are native to Wisconsin. In this case, I think an exception needs to be made in order to promote the greenness of the two woods -- the bamboo is renewable in 9 years, and the cork in 10 years. This beats Wisconsin's fastest pine. And I can see cork working well in a "soft" cozy room with an area rug over parts, and bamboo in a room where a harder, more durable surface is needed -- halls, kitchens, etc.