">HomeOwnerNut

When it comes to bathroom designs, the Internet is flush with ideas about the contemporary toilet. These days, you’ll find lots of green bathroom remodeling tips about the latest generation of high-efficiency toilets (HET). The newest HETs offer an .8 gallon procedure, where older toilets consume 6 gallons to do the job. But none of them look halfway as interesting as these unique designs I’ve culled by Googling and going with the flow.

Commodious dentitis

Photo by Holy Taco

Toilet designs like this make you wonder what their creator had in mind. Perhaps it was an earnest attempt at water conservation through the power of persuasion.

Bathroom for massively multiplayer addicts

Photo by Curious Photos

Last year a 20-year-old British man died from a blood clot that formed during his all-night shifts on his console playing the online game Halo. In 2009, a young Korean man committed suicide when he discovered could no longer walk away from his console. Seriously, gentlemen, take a break, will you?

Go fish

Photo by Izismile

Someone call PETA. What happens to the fish when the tank drains to flush the commode? It’s an interesting enough design, but I couldn’t possibly sit there with all those eyes on me.

Heat for your seat

Photo by Japanese Stuff

You have to hand it to Japanese designers who created this warm toilet for those icy winter mornings. It’s probably not the model to choose if you have a family member that already spends too much time in there.

The butt of someone’s joke

Photo by Reverse Monster

No, it’s not the Grateful Dead’s old drum kit. But with more than 2,050 different styles of bathroom toilets on the market, you’d have a tough time convincing your spouse to live with this one.

Uncanny experience

Photo by Azareal

It took an Atlantis astronaut more than six hours during his spacewalk to “fix” bad smells coming from this toilet on the International Space Station. It would take you a month of physics classes at the Houston Flight Center to learn how to use this clinical masterpiece.

Need to read up on your flush-toilet antiquity? Peruse Gizmodo’s “The Long, Unglamorous History of the Toilet.”

Green architecture doesn’t have to cancel out traditional community designs or striking good looks. EcoHome magazine’s second annual design awards announced this week went to breath-taking examples that mixed innovation with traditional appeal. I like to poke fun at platitudes. But it’s tough to play the comedy card when home designers create such exquisite homes that advance our culture. Here are four of the winners:

Architecture that looks great and acts green

Photo by EcoHome Magazine

Samsel Architects of Asheville, N.C., came up with the designs for the Celo Residence, a 1,538-square-foot home that captured an EcoHome Grand Award for its sustainable 3,750-gallon rainwater catchment cistern, low-flow toilet systems, and low-VOC interior paints. Read the details at EcoHome.

There was an old home in Nantucket

Photo by Inman News

Take one 264-year-old home on Nantucket Island, restore it to the charm of its original architecture, add a kitchen and bath – and do it all while meeting LEED insulation and air sealing requirements. Kudos (and a Grand Award) to Rosenberg Kolb Architects of New York City. Read more about the winners at Yahoo.

Aloha by Design

Photo by EcoHome Magazine

The trick was to build the 45 subsidized homes of the Kumuhau Subdivision on Oahu using solar power and rainwater drip irrigation, earning  LEED-Gold certification. Praise for architects Armstrong Development of Honolulu. Inman News offers a comprehensive write up on these homes that reflect traditional plantation architecture, honoring nature.

Going, going, green

Photo by EcoHome Magazine

The award-winning GO Home in Belfast, Maine, is only the 12^th home in the nation to earn the “Passive House” designation, and EcoHome predicts its solar, south-facing orientation will recover $170,000 in energy costs over three decades of use. The house, designed by architects at GO Logic Homes of Belfast, has a pending LEED-Platinum certification.

Bravo!