There’s a notion, among folks I’ve met, that all green dwellings are weird, kooky, or minimal (read boring) but that’s not true at all. I actually do like the unique green dwellings, but many green homes are being built nowadays in contemporary styles, modern styles, and basic styles. You can’t even tell that some green homes are green from looking at them, so if you’re interested in green homes, but not in extreme green homes, you do have plenty of options.

Image via Lifecycle Building Challenge

Here are some various ends of the green home spectrum. Starting with, yes, the unique. This to-die for home seen above is fresh from the Lifecycle Building Challenge – something that the ever green Jetson Green covered in depth. This particular home, the Loblolly House: Unbolt, Detach, Reassemble was one of the challenge winners and it’s easy to see why. This beautiful beyond belief, prefab, energy conserving, waste reducing home is simply awesome.

Image via Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

If small and sweet is your dream then Tumbleweed homes are perfect for you (see above). Space saving, resource saving, and green to the max.

Image via A Low Impact Woodland Home

One of my favorite green homes is the amazing Woodland House. This home is not only unique but greener than green with so many eco-feature you can’t believe it. Learn more.

See a slide show of TEN amazing green homes – from cob to prefab to green remodels and more. There’s a green home styled just for you in this slide show.

From time to time I’ll share some other cool green homes here – stay tuned.

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Luscious Green Houses

This is a pretty basic contest – contestants must apply sustainable features to an edible gingerbread home. Each house must have at least 4 identifiable green home attributes and the whole darn house must be edible.

Last year’s winning house:

As you can see, last year’s winner had oodles of sustainable design aspects. You can see many more cool eco-homes at the BFAC2007 entries site.

You can enter the Bake for A Change contest up until Midnight PST, December 31, 2008. If you enter let me know – and good luck.

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Eco Gingerbread Contest

This gingerbread home, from Rock Recipes is not that offbeat, but I like it anyhow, and am especially impressed that it lights up.

The details on this lighted gingerbread home are extraordinary – see many close-ups here.

Will Alsop’s gingerbread version of Peckham Library in London via Gingerbread architecture at livee by architecture. PS no, livee is not a typo.

Modern ranch gingerbread house from abh75 – totally cute and simple. The glass around the door is an excellent touch.

A gingerbread Moomin house from Axis of Ævil – not sure what a Moomin is (prob some game/tech/oddball toy or character I haven’t heard of) BUT the house is extra adorable and unique, complete with shooting star!

And in risky gingerbread news, something I’m not sure I should post here, being that I myself and this blog are not exactly criminal, but still, I think you should check it out – Gingerbread Ghetto. This is not gingerbread architecture for the faint of heart, but some of the structures are pretty darn funny.

Bonus gingerbread: click here to see a gingerbread surprise that the kids will like.

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Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part Two

One of Offbeat’s favorite gals, Michelle Kaufmann has a killer (and gorgeous) template plus recipe posted that teaches you how to make your very own organic GingerLotus. Not quite as livable as the the mkLotus, unless you happen to be made out of sugary dough, but very cool.

Last year’s Gingerbread Village at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel featured many amazing edible homes. From Bay Area’s KMD Architects there was the beautiful “Chinese New Year”:

DLR Group managed a gravity defying “Planet Holidays”:

You can see and read about many more Gingerbread Village Houses in Constructing Christmas from The Stranger.

If you want to make your own mod gingerbread home, without all the fuss, snag yourself the personalizable modern gingerbread house from red envelope.

Cool for a kit, but I bet if you tried to make your own, it’d be even neater.

Stay tuned, because I’ve got more offbeat gingerbread homes coming up and the goods on a unique gingerbread contest you may enjoy entering.

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Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part One

Not only is this house totally unique, but it’s a sewing leap. Seriously, could you knit a house? When I was 8 I tried to knit a scarf, and didn’t get very far, so I’m impressed.

Plus knit flowers! Imagine the benefits; less care, water savings, and they’re always in bloom – too cool. Read Knit Yourself A Home to learn more, and to see other great images of this neat knitted home.

[image originally via the now defunct Knittingsite.org]

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Classic Offbeat Homes: Knitted House

Did you make a guess yet?

What sort of structure will it be? Let’s see…

Strawberry structures! Here’s the deal. I’ve been sort of obsessing over the Strawberry Fields Forever cover by Ben Harper; for like a week. This is odd because:

1. I usually hate covers (I like maybe five – ten cover tunes period).
2. It’s not like I hadn’t heard this song before. I heard it when it first came out a LONG time ago. In fact, I really like I Am Sam, the movie it comes from.
3. As far as Beatles tunes go, SFF rates fairly low on my list of favorites. I love the Beatles, but was never into this particular song one way or the other.

I have issues.

I figured this would make a good classic post though, so here we go; some offbeat classic strawberry structures…

To learn more about these strawberry structures, or to see even more fruity structures, visit the original Offbeat Homes post, Sweet Fruity Structures.

As an extra treat, here’s the album version of my song obsession, just in case you need to hear it. There are some live versions floating around too, but oddly, I don’t enjoy them.

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Classic Offbeat Homes: No one I think is in my tree…

The kick off: A Super Special Sunshiny Day at Offbeat Homes

The best of Offbeat Homes:

• June 2007
• July 2007
• August 2007
• September 2007
• October 2007
• November 2007
• December 2007
• January 2008
• February 2008
• March 2008
• April 2008
• May 2008

Thanks:

Offbeat Homes would like to thank…

Thanks to these great b5 media blogs…

Best Offbeat Reader Comments of the Year

Thanks for hanging out for the celebration. Coming up this week, I’ve got something pretty cool planned here at Offbeat, so stick around.

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Offbeat Homes Year Anniversary Wrap

The Powerlight Office Space – I love this space. Also I rarely blog about offices, so this was a good break.

I’d like to live, under the sea… – Senosiain Arquitectos creates some of the most unique work I’ve ever seen.

Offbeat Play Structures for Your Unique Child – I love cool kid play structures.

My New Favorite Real Estate Website! – I’ve been spending a lot of time here, so I have to say this is one of the favorite four.

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The Best of Offbeat Homes: May 2008

Antonino Cardillo’s Vaulted House – I pretty much adore everything Cardillo creates. The colors, the lines, the minimal factor.

Outstanding Offbeat Organic Beauty – the Work of Robert Harvey Oshatz – His work is so amazing.

Arte Luise Kunsthotel – This hotel may be one of the best in the world. I love the whole idea of themes by artists.

 The Most Stylish Blogger Spaces In the World! – So far, a theme day post hasn’t made the top four in any of the months this year. However, I really liked the show your office theme day we did here at the Lifestyles Channel. It’s cool to see where other bloggers work.

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The Best of Offbeat Homes: April 2008

I double dare someone to build an entire house out of these… – I really like shaped and nicely designed bricks and other building materials. If you’ve got kooky building supplies, you might not even need a weird home design to pull off an offbeat home.

Classic Offbeat Homes: Favorite Posts of Spammers – I more like this post because someone emailed me later and had some ideas about why “Eating the Biscuit City” was so popular with spammers. Um, the ideas are not G or even PG rated, so I won’t be posting them, but let’s just say it sort of made my world more amusing.

Best Site of the Week for Touring – Faces in Places – This post wasn’t exactly about houses. However Faces in Places is so darn cool, that I just love this post. It makes me happy. I love surprised houses.

Freitag Flagship Store – I just think this structure is genius. Simple, yet really attractive and hip.

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The Best of Offbeat Homes: March 2008