Architects spearheaded the movement, decades ago, to make buildings less damaging to the environment. Today it is the architects' clients who are pulling the trend forward, wrote Jonathan Fahey, business-reporter-turned-environmental-correspondent at Forbes.

The cost of running and maintaining inefficient buildings makes owners not want to buy them, Scot Horst of the United States Green Building Council told Forbes. Horst notes a new competition among companies to look and be more green.

Technology abounds to make buildings more energy efficient. Buildings can change their shape to control incoming light or heat, and systems within their walls can communicate and coordinate with each other. Horst told Fahey what many of our readers already know:

A building can be designed perfectly, but it can still waste a lot of energy if the occupants leave the air conditioning running with the windows open or don't shut the lights off. Horst estimates the responsibility for the performance of a building is split three ways: one-third is determined by the design, one-third by how it is managed and one-third by how people inside behave.

Technology is a personal and professional passion. As fun and interesting as the Forbes round-up is, I must note that there are simple and cost-effective solutions to design energy efficiency into buildings.

Even these 10 eye-catching buildings employ hundreds of practical, yet elegant measures to reduce energy use. Features like dynamic facades are fascinating, but the architects would not have included them had they been purely functional and non-aesthetic.

Spreading wings are not the only way to shade a building, but they are, as the Forbes headline promises, high tech.

"The Most High-Tech Green Buildings" Forbes, 6 July 2010

Slide show (recommended)

Our 2009 story on the New York Times Building, one of the Forbes 10 Most High-Tech Buildings.