The Wall Street Journal asked four architects to design a sustainable house without regard to cost, technology, aesthetics or “the way we are used to living.”

In return architects like Rick Cook of Cook + Fox did what is expected and asked us to “re-examine values, re-examine what we need.”

One of the houses was an idea derived from a tree house but with a photosynthetic layer woven into the fabric of the exterior is used to eliminate bulky roof top solar panels.

Another, The Reptile House, uses a “biomorphic” skin that reacts to weather so that heat and light get optimized. The facade also will capture rain for household use.

As studies of what could be possible this kind of story is interesting to designers and futurists, but seriously though we’d prefer to see the Wall Street Journal do more stories about our backwards housing market.

We already know today how to build a beautiful functioning super-efficient eco-house that is affordable and easily reproduced so virtually everyone that wants to could live in “the house of tomorrow, today.”

We’d love the WSJ to do some actual investigative reporting on why the largest US building corporations don’t already build affordable modern efficient houses in exchange for the cheap minimally insulated stick houses based on poor or just plain ugly architectural plans.

We can already do it – the question big media should be asking is “why aren’t we.” Read the story in Wall Street Journal.