With challenges like rising sea levels and soaring temperatures more commonplace, resilient spatial design is becoming essential for the future of our homes. These four climate-resilient residential projects explore how best to tackle environmental threats in the domestic space while maintaining the essence of home.
Photo: Riccardo de Vecchi
Optimizing resources and reclaiming space minimize environmental impact
Rotterdam-based Studio RAP designed a floating home in Leiden, the Netherlands, with sustainability concerns at the core. The home is constructed of timber and solid cork and was designed as a series of smaller modules. Its structure is inspired by origami, with folded structures that create larger surface areas with less material. The walls and roof were parametrically optimized, resulting in a reduction of 2,000 kg of timber compared with conventional construction methods. The framework is clad in cork, a highly insulating plant-based material with a low-carbon footprint. Looking to this type of home construction amid rising sea levels may offer a solution to reclaiming space that's not usable due to climate change.
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Cover and Above: Fara Faheem, Hala Makhlouf
Locally sourced materials offer ready-made cooling mechanisms
Karm Architecture Lab took a resourceful approach when designing the Breathing Beach House in Marsa Alam, Egypt. The family vacation home – located on the bank of the Red Sea in Egypt’s Eastern desert – is designed to help naturally cool itself given that the area can reach temperatures of up to 50°C in the summer. Load-bearing walls are built from the same natural stone material as the ground it occupies. The material’s porosity allows it to cool the space naturally, producing condensation droplets on the indoor wall surfaces when temperatures change, similar to human perspiration. Secondary walls made of coral limestone and bamboo wrap around the home’s Southern side, shielding the inner walls from the sun’s direct daytime heat. Two ventilation towers – which the architect describes as the ‘lungs of the house’ – protrude through the centre of the structure one acts as a wind catcher, capturing cooled natural air, and the other as a solar chimney, getting rid of hot air.
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Photo: Courtesy of SelgasCano
Climate-resilient design doesn’t have to mean sacrificing aesthetics
Fully embracing its Los Angeles site, a hillside home relies on a recycled aluminium structure to simultaneously provide shade and frame the scenery. Responding to LA’s subtropical climate and locals’ subsequent lifestyles, La Canaria features free-flowing indoor and outdoor space, with a sizeable terrace providing the latter. An outdoor recycled aluminium ‘envelopment’ adopts the dual role of sunshade and view-framer. The designers reflected the horizon back onto the hillside, with a golden-hued home that provides shelter from the sun. Houses in some of the world’s warmer locations are preventing overheating by shuttering off during daylight hours, but SelgasCano and Diego Cano-Lasso tackled the challenge of providing shelter from the sun while celebrating the surrounding scenery.
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Photo: Rory Gardiner
Vernacular design can create resilient yet comfortable homes
Located in the arid plains of the Sahara Desert in Morocco, this house draws on its surrounding context and local design language to maximize comfort. The rural house responds to the unique condition of the site through its elongated form, which follows the lines of the historic waterways. Two drastically different ecologies form on either side of the house. On one side, the desert landscape dominates, while, on the other, shrubs, trees and other plants emerge from the sandy soil. Without any windows breaking up the rammed earth walls, the building relies on generous lightwells to bring light into the spaces. The inner rims of the wells are clad with zellige tiles sourced locally, and their reflective surfaces help diffuse the harsh Moroccan sun. Interior water features, like baths and pools, help cool down the spaces while bringing a spa-like feel to the home.
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