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Isolated Queensland Home is Fiercely Energy Independent

This house employs a series of huge sliding screens to minutely control exposure to sun and shade.

The very simple design from Shaun Lockyer Architects meets the sometimes harsh climate conditions in Queensland, Australia with a chic solution.

There are sliding glass panels behind the screens, and superb cross ventilation through the narrow space open on both sides.

While the climate can be extreme, the isolated setting is staggering.

Walking around the side of the house, the screen holder acts as an unintentional frame for the magnificent views.

Like many houses in Australia, solar panels provide the electricity needed inside.

A wood fire supplies the heat.

The space between the external screens and the glass sliding doors creates a sometimes hallway.

At the far end of the house, a window suggests more public space.

Actually, that window is within the master bedroom (behind the viewer).

A door to a master bedroom immediately behind a kitchen can seem shockingly abrupt, but here a tall alcove intercedes.

The kitchen recess has a shiny black backsplash that seems to recede to the distance.

Beyond the central living room, the children’s bedrooms.

The stark straightforward plan is the utmost in chic.

In black, the garage is separated by color.

White utility rooms jut out opposite the children’s bedrooms.

Outside, in this isolated setting, a fire needs little ceremony.

Inside, a very beat up old table for gathering around.

A very welcoming home, that is adaptable and energy independent, all alone out here in this magnificent wilderness.

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Ancient and Modern Kitma House on the Greek Island of Antiparos

The island of Antiparos in the Cyclades hosts a collection of new architect-designed luxury housing launched by OLIAROS as the Antiparos Design Properties.

One of the designs by featured young architects is Kitma House, half-buried in the hillside, by Camilo Rebelo and Susana Martins.

Like all of the dwellings designed for the island in the center of the Cycladic complex of Islands in the Aegean Sea, the luxury clientele is able to access it by private helicopter from Athens, just 80 miles away.

The white outcroppings above the zigzag facade are actually a series of skylights bringing daylight down into the earth-cooled rooms beneath them.

From below, the house suggests the traditional vernacular of a Greek fishing village on the Cycladic Islands.

Cooled top and bottom by the earth surrounding the spaces, the pair’s design needs no fans or air conditioning.

An all-marble bathroom similarly cools its deep earthburied interiors.

While from below, the facade suggests an ancient fishing village, from above, the building is a modern abstract zigzag white line that follows the topography of the hillside.

Vegetation on these originally volcanic islands is limited and surrounding fisheries provided nearly all the income from the most ancient time.

With the advent of the architecture design competition, now Antiparos is becoming a mecca of another sort, as a luxury tourism destination.

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Quiet Napa Idyll of Four Structures and a Lap Pool

The Napa Valley House designed by Eliot Lee and his wife Eun Lee comprises four separate structures: a living/dining “house”, a master bedroom suite, a guest house and a sauna.