The desert has always inspired architects to rethink living, from Taliesin and Arcosanti to Biosphere 2 and the High Desert Test Sites. The off-grid Arizona House takes one of these radical typologies – the buried “earthship” of the 1970s – and liberates it from the ground to add to this history of visionary houses.
The house is a composition of heavy and light. A thick wall of high-tech adobe brick contains bedrooms, bathroom, compositing toilet, water storage and kitchen. Much as an earthship would use the thermal mass of the earth as a heat sink, the brick absorbs heat during the day and radiates it back into the bedrooms at night. Floating above, a greenhouse separates the open-plan living spaces from the outdoors. It contains a living machine for water filtration and assists airflow from buried underground ducts up through the house to the top of the slanted roof of photovoltaic panels.
Arizona House
Tubac, Arizona
2015-ongoing
Principals: Amale Andraos + Dan Wood
Project Architect: Evgeniya Plotnikova
Project Team: Zuha Alasadi, Anna Bozek
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