The 1960s - famous for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - are also remembered as the beginning of the green movement, the time when people became aware of the fragility of what the eccentric visionary architect Buckminster Fuller described as "spaceship Earth." The fantastical domes Fuller invented and the Fulleresque buildings that hippies created on communal farms in Marin County, the Wine Country, Big Sur and other parts of the country, such as Woodstock, are inspiring for green-thinking architects today.

Historian Alastair Gordon's fascinating new book, "Spaced Out: Crash Pads, Hippie Communes, Infinity Machines, and Other Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties" ($65, Rizzoli), looks at what happened back then and puts the era's architectural efforts, good and bad, into current context. Gordon's research makes it clear that the '60s generated many of (more...)