Modular office design has evolved at a glacial pace since enclosed cubicles became America’s standard-issue workspace in the early 1980s. Today’s cubicles bear an unsettlingly similar resemblance to the cubicles of 25 years ago.

The same cannot be said of modular home design. Sure, factories continue to churn out unimaginative, prefabricated double-wide homes. But a new generation of architects has been broadly expanding the boundaries of modular home design, creating living spaces that incorporate environmental sustainability and efficiency, as well as technical sophistication

One such modular home is currently the centerpiece of the Museum of Science and Industry’s Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit. The three-story, 2,500-square-foot mkSolaire home, designed by Iowa native Michelle Kaufmann, has been situated squarely in the middle of the museum’s Beaver Park.

We toured the Smart Home this past weekend. The design comes across as neither prefab nor modular; rather, the bright and airy home somehow manages to feel simultaneously organic and state of the art.

In no particular order, here are our seven favorite features of the Smart Home.

1. The home’s photovoltaic solar panels, which are 15%-20% more efficient than traditional solar panels, provide enough energy to power most of the home; excess energy is sent back to the ComEd grid.

2. The beautiful Blazestone subway tile in the master bathroom is made from recycled chardonnay bottles.

3. Multiple rain barrels collect water runoff, which is then used to keep the home’s meticulous landscaping looking lush.

4. Heated radiant subfloors heat rooms from the floor up, which leads to greater energy efficiency.

5. A dual-flush toilet gives you the option of using either 0.8 or 1.6 liters of water, depending on your “needs.”

6. The NatureMill tabletop electric composter recycles its weight in waste every 10 days; plus, the composter itself is 100% recyclable.

7. The artwork of Brian Andreas, taken from his “Chalkboard” series, evokes playfulness and modernity as soon as one walks through the home’s front door and scans the living room wall.

If you’d like a Smart Home to call your own, be prepared to pay $500,000, a total that does not include the price of the land.

“The mkSolaire is designed as a healthy, green-living solution for the city,” says Kaufmann, the home’s designer. “Even in a typical city lot where two sides do not see sunlight, this home is washed with natural light.”

While we think the mkSolaire would be a fine home in an urban environment, it’s open design — with large windows on all sides and multiple decks — is better suited to a larger, less-developed swath of land.

That said, wherever we’re living, be it an urban or rural environment, we’d be thrilled to call the mkSolaire our Home Sweet Smart Home.

Flannery O’Connor quipped in a short story that a “good man is hard to find,” but a senior staffer at CC has discovered that finding a good Realtor can be equally elusive. She’s searching for a home in the $350,000-$400,000 price range, which to her represents a daunting amount of money. But, hey, that’s the going rate for 1,500 square feet in a decent neighborhood, even during the current supposed housing collapse.

Much to our staffer’s surprise, she’s struggling to find a Realtor who’s willing to represent her. They’re slow to return her calls; and when they finally do, their level of enthusiasm drops palpably as soon as they learn about her $400,000 ceiling. For us, that’s a high ceiling. Evidently for many Realtors, it’s chump change. They’re targeting a $60,000 commission on a $2 million estate in Bannockburn.

Do you know a competent, service-oriented Realtor who’s willing to represent our staffer? If so, please submit a comment here that includes the Realtor’s name and contact information.

This ain’t exactly a pro bono project here, folks. Let’s help out our CC staffer and make a few bucks for a motivated real estate professional in the process.

(Yes, we recognize that the home pictured below would be priced far beyond what our staffer could afford. But it’s her dream house, so we include it here to humor her.)

Does this week’s heat got you feeling beat? Herman Miller has a new gadget that can cool you down the moment you enter your cube. It’s the C2 Climate Control, a PC-speaker-size device that promises to cool or heat your cube, and clean the air in the process. 

We’d love to review the C2 for you, but we’re a promotion or two away from being able to afford the $280 price tag. Still, we’ll keep an eye out for a deeply discounted one on eBay.

It cools. It heats. It cleans.

If only it also could drown out our neighboring cubie’s constant negative nattering about her boyfriend’s ex-wife, we’d buy one today regardless of the price.

We don’t have a book club, but if we did, this month’s selection would be Cubicle Warfare: 101 Office Traps and Pranks. The book’s author, John Austin, once worked as a toy designer for Hasbro. We’re skeptical, if a tad curious, about this one. We’ll give it a read and post a review next month. In the meantime, watch your back; we may want to try out a few of these stunts.

The talk around the water cooler this morning was all about The New Yorker’s controversial cover depicting Barack Obama as a muslim and his wife, Michelle, as a terrorist. A few found the illustration to be good satirical fun, but most viewed it as a sensationalistic — and not particularly humorous or insightful — attempt to get attention. On this latter point, the magazine certainly succeeded: Google News currently has 1,677 articles related to the controversy.

After we killed our iPod last week, we contemplated the best way to dispose of it. We had a five-year relationship with our iPod, and we couldn’t well imagine just pitching it in the trash. We considered burying it, as though it were a family pet, but ultimately concluded that doing so would be eco-unfriendly. We even wondered if it would be possible to cremate our iPod and toss its ashes into Lake Michigan. The Google search “cremate your ipod,” however, led us nowhere.

Eventually we stumbled on BuyMyTronics.com, a web-based company that buys used and broken electronics. We clicked our way through a menu of questions in which we described the condition of our dead iPod, and within a few moments we were offered $6.36 for it. Granted, it would take 35 more broken iPods at $6.36 a pop for us to have enough scratch to buy a new iPod, but it gives us a sense of peace to know that our 15GB friend will be parted out and used to extend the lives of other iPods.

We read about Cook County’s sales tax increase in the local newspapers, but the reality of Chicago’s now 10.25 percent sales tax — the highest in the nation — didn’t sink in until the cashier at our favorite coffee shop said “that’ll be $4.01” when we asked for a simple parfait.

The four-dollar mark represents a breakfast barrier for us. We immediately resolved to wake up ten minutes earlier each weekday so that we’d have time to scarf down a bowl of yogurt mixed with granola before heading for the train. 

But this got us wondering: What more can we — and you — do to take the sting out of the 10.25-percent tax bite? We polled our staff — ouch! — and came up with these seven suggestions.

1. Shop in Wisconsin. If you need to spend big bucks on purchases that you can fit in one car load, consider making the short drive up I-94 to Kenosha, where the sales tax is 5.10 percent, roughly half that of Chicago. Kenosha is home to the Bristol Renaissance Faire and has excellent beaches, in case you’re a medievil windsurfer who’s looking for added motivation for heading to cheese country.

2. Bring your own lunch. No, there’s nothing original about this tip. But of our seven suggestions, it’s likely the one that can save you the most money. If eating out sets you back eight bucks a day and bringing your own lunch only costs three bucks, then brownbaggin’ it would save you approximately $1,250 annually.

3. Buy all your stuff on Amazon.com. At the risk of further inflating Jeff Bezos’ ego, we must confess to loving Amazon. Orders over $25 ship for free, and you pay no sales tax (note: technically — i.e., legally — you’re obligated to pay sales taxes on Internet purchases). And Amazon is much more than a book-seller these days. Electronics, appliances, clothing, toys, food — they sell it all. Once we get done writing this post, we’re going to buy a case of our favorite Clif Bars.

4. Become a minimalist. Getting by with less isn’t just a money saver, it’s also trendy. The Nostradamus of our times, Faith Popcorn, has stated as much: “Workingmen and women are questioning their personal and career goals and opting for a simpler way of living. We see it in people of all ages and especially among those in their 20s. These young people are so tired of everything; they sound like they are in their 90s.”

So hop aboard the anti-consumerism bandwagon. Make your mantra, “No purchase, no sales tax.”

5. Negotiate. As a Russian coworker once said to us after she talked her way into a deep discount on a pair of Dansko shoes, “It’s all negotiable.” True, bartering can be uncomfortable, both for you and for the salesperson. But the economy has hit the skids and retailers are desperate to move merchandise. You have little to lose and much to gain in asking for, say, a 10.25% discount, especially when purchasing big-ticket items.

6. Use a cash-back credit card. Not to sound like a swill for a major corporation, but the American Express Cash Rebate Card is a no brainer. Spend more than $6,500 annually with your no-annual-fee AmEx card, and you’ll receive a 5 percent cash refund on purchases made at grocery stores, drugstores, and gas stations. Plus, AmEx will double the warranty coverage on all purchases made with the card. So if you’re buying electronics, use your AmEx and turn down the overpriced and oft unnecessary extended warranty.

7. Move to New Hampshire. If you really want to avoid being bitten by taxes, pack up your snow shoes and fuzzy woolens and head to New Hampshire. The Granite State has no sales tax and no state income tax. Plus, it boasts one of the most colorful, if cryptic, state mottos in the Union: “Live Free or Die.” Perhaps “Live Tax Free, Then Die” would be more appropriate. Regardless, the Libertarian in us envies all those crusty New Englanders who can buy a $20,000 car without having to worry about a $2,000-plus tax penalty.

A friend of ours convinced us that we possessed the technical know-how to replace the dying battery in our five-year-old iPod. Foolishly, we believed him.

On his advice we purchased a new battery for $20 from MacSales.com. The battery arrived within two days from the Woodstock, Ill.-based e-tailer. We eagerly removed the battery from its packaging, smiling with self satisfaction as we contemplated extending the life of our beloved 15GB handheld jukebox by another two to three years. We’d grown quite fond of our iPod. It traveled with us to work, to the gym, to far-flung vacations. It was part of our family.

The battery came with a small plastic tool that, according to the included instructions, we should use to “pry open the case.” We spent 15 frustrating minutes attempting to wedge the tool into the seam where the face of the iPod meets its case. We got nowhere.

We sighed. Then grunted. Then cursed.

Fueled by anger and desperation, we tracked down a heavy-duty Sears Craftsman screwdriver, which we positioned along the seam and drove forward with a forceful palm slap. The case cracked, the screwdriver’s head penetrated the seam, and — argh! — a blue, ink-like circle of death spread out over the iPod’s display screen (see photo below).

We fried our iPod.

And now we’re stuck with a new battery for a third-generation model. If you want it, send an e-mail to cc@chicagocubed.com stating as much. We’ll mail the battery to you at our expense, assuming you live in the Continental U.S.

So long, dear iPod. We’re sorry we killed you. May you rock in peace.

We openly admit our disdain for workers in the Loop who eschew mass transit in favor of driving to their jobs. The exorbitant expense for gas and parking, the stress and hassle of slow-moving traffic, the smog-inducing emissions — why people opt to drive, we’ll never understand.

Nevertheless, while waiting on the Blue Line platform this morning, we were cheered to see a Volvo driver playing a flute as he slogged his way through stop-and-go traffic on the Eisenhower. Sure, it was a risky maneuver on his part, considering that he was steering his $35,000 sedan with his elbows. But the sight of a nattily dressed middle-aged businessman playing a flute is sure to draw a smile, especially when he’s doing so in the privacy of his own car rather than in the seat next to us on the El.

Thinking about picking up pecan encrusted salmon cakes from Whole Foods in Lincoln Park on your way home tonight? Think again. The Chicago Department of Health shut down the store this afternoon after discovering a rodent infestation. “More than 100 [mouse] droppings” were found in one cooler, according to a Crain’s article.

Trader Joe’s, here we come.