This May, Jonathan Bell, 1992 graduate of Studio Arts/Architecture major at Wesleyan, gave a woefully under-attended lecture about his latest project: the Khan/Tirmizi House in Brattleboro, Vermont - also known as the Couple-Three House (NOT pictured above).*

A divorced couple with kids wanted to have their personal space but also make sure their kids got to see plenty of both of them without having to drive them back and forth. So Bell devised an ingenius solution: put the kids in an upstairs bedroom with one staircase going down to Mom’s side of the house and the other going to Dad’s. The parents would only have to see each other when they were tucking the kids into bed. From the front, the house looks like a single family home, albeit with two entrances and a tres tres chic design. But on the rear, its split identity is expressed externally, with two separate eaves above two separate porches.

With no driving necessary, this family’s gotta have the smallest carbon footprint of any divorced family in America. Now that environmental friendliness is finally hip, maybe Bell can make his fortune franchising these Couple-Three Houses.

*This picture is not of the house described above - it's a picture of another one of Bell's projects, the Crossroads community center in Rhode Island.