Chicago Museum Science and Industry green home exhibit

March 11, 1:29 PMChicago Home Technology ExaminerMaryan Pelland

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Green living homes are the most important technology in our country's commitment to change. Chicago's Museum Science and Industry brings back their wildly popular Greenest Home in Chicago, reopening this month. Barrack Obama promised change and energy saving inititatives. You and I can jump on green design at home right now. Green living products abound - everything from luxury bamboo sheets to corn oil paper cups, and all in the green home.

The Museum of Science and Industry's website says last year more than 100,000 people visited the exhibition also known as Smart Home: Green and Wired. That's an encouraging statistic making me think there's a lot of people who care about this planet.

The green home is an interesting ultra-modern building in the museum's "backyard". It's three stories tall and "modular" meaning, I assume, that this proto-type is factory built. Maybe you've read about the new materials for green living. This upscale place has beautiful kitchen tile made of old glass bottles. Its solar power can squeeze energy from sunlight, even on a cloudy day when you wouldn't think there was any.

The outdoor wood fixtures -- deck, pergola -- are made of old plastic bags. Everything from vertical gardening to nine toxic paint is as earth friendly as it could possibly be. A walk through this 21st-century solution is fascinating. Some of the people and organizations involved included Michelle Kaufmann designs, All American Homes, Chicago Home and Garden Magazine, Wired Magazine and EarthBox product.

To visit the Greenest Home in Chicago you'll need a separate entry ticket and appointed time for your visit. Tickets can be purchased online and at the same website there are interactive activities. Watch a smart home being built in time lapse photography or listen to a smart home podcast, for example. Interestingly, this modern smart home may have been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's House of the Future exhibit, a 1970s attraction in Arizona.