POLYHEDRON HABITABLE, Bogota D. C., Colombia, 2009. By Manuel Villa with Alberto Gonzalez.

     Some of the houses, especially those crafted in wood, have a hippieish, back-to-the-earth energy. But many have a more stylish, modern look. Furnished with the most current appliances and furniture, they’re appealing streamlined and come awfully close to illustrating Le Corbusier’s dictum that the house is a machine for living. Because they’re small these houses have a more discrete presence in the landscape and can harmonize beautifully with forests, stone outcroppings, and other land forms. And because they’re small they can be constructed with unconventional methods and materials. There’s one house in the book built inside a geodesic dome, one built into a crater, and one covered entirely in tar paper. These little green houses show that we can still fantasize about building that dream house; we just need to scale it back a bit.