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A Very Energy Efficient White House by the Sea

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Here’s a house that takes the reflective and climate-cooling power of white roofs to the nth degree! The roof is white, but so is almost everything else in this Japanese seaside home by Takio Shiotsuka.

The organization is unusual. This large window faces away from the ses, surprisingly.

It houses the master bedroom. The whiteness continues to dominate the interior. Calming, but a bit sterile? This looks like a hospital room to me.

Stranger still, the bathing area is right in the middle of the house and wide open on all sides to views.

But there is a good reason for this. The entire house can be seen through in both directions , so you can see the sea, and in the other direction, the hills.

And when you need to be in the bathroom, the view can be shut out with a special glass that can be made to become opaque making the bathroom private when privacy is needed.

The house is sunk partway below grade, to take advantage of the geothermal properties of cooling and heating at five feet or more underground to reduce the home’s energy bill.

The passageways from front to back are on the sides of the house.

Facing out to sea, a smaller window is high enough to leap a tall privacy fence.

…and is yet big enough to view the sea view here.

All in all – an odd house. The relentless whiteness, which makes environmental sense outside: because if every roof in a region experiencing greater temperature increases was white – it would help reduce regional climate change. A white roof also reduces heating and cooling costs by about 20%.

But extending that white on the inside seems just peculiar to me. How about you?

Image: Takio Shiotsuka
Source: Shio
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