Planet Antidote: 'Green Community'

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THESE PEOPLE MUST be deranged. They have cities where they water the trees with melted snow or light big grass fires to feed the soil. They warm their water underground, charge their batteries with the sun, plant weeds on the roof and some prefer wind power to coal. And they call this natural?

At the National Building Museum, "Green Community" will leave you thinking — hoping, maybe — that humans aren't such compulsive vandals after all. The notion of greenness comes up a notch from vegan shoes and Tom of Maine toothpaste to whole societies apparently hellbent on better housekeeping. There's Greensburg, Kan., redressing last year's killer tornado with energy-efficient new buildings and rain-absorbing landscape; little Stella, Mo., which with just 180-odd people has established, of all things, a town growth boundary; and our very own Arlington, where in 20 years, a Metro line has helped turn empty asphalt steppes into a new civilization.

It's all so curiously ... adroit. "We wanted to avoid a bleak scenario," says the show's curator, the architect Susan Piedmont-Palladino. "We wanted to demystify 'green' — that it belongs to people who take classes and have certifications. We wanted to remind people that sustainability is just a big word for common sense."

Want the bad news? Look elsewhere — you won't have to look far. Here, through October 2009, you'll have to make do with proof that an industrial wasteland like the old Atlantic Steel Mill in Atlanta can be rehabbed into earning its own ZIP code (30363) and that not all of the development in the United Arab Emirates is about tattooing fake, palm-shaped islands on top of the deep blue sea.

» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; through Oct. 2009; 202-272-2448. (Judiciary Square)

Written by Express contributor Bradford McKee
Photo by Sarah Leen/National Geographic Collection