Perfect Houses

Does your home wake with the sun? Dress for the seasons? Listen to your needs? Virginia Tech students and professors say that their Lumenhaus solar home does all these things, and more. Taking inspiration from Mies van der Rohe'sFarnsworth House, Lumenhaus has moving walls and can grow and shrink to meet a family's needs.

_{Above: Lumenhaus photo by Stefano Paltera/US Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon}

Neighborhood zoning boards often frown on duplexes, but when budgets are tight, a two-family home makes sense. Readers Terry and Jobi Laybourne from Australia wanted a house large enough to share with their adult son and his family. Here's the plan they drafted._{Above: House design by Terry and Jobi Laybourne. Click the image for a larger view.}

On September 18, 1793, America's first president, George Washington, laid the cornerstone for the Capitol building in Washington DC. Inspired by the Roman Pantheon, plans for the Capitol went through many revisions. The grand domed building we see today wasn't completed until the 1860s, during America's Civil War.

^{Photo of U.S. Capitol Building, ClipArt.com}