Homes
The homes featured here are proof that sustainable living doesn’t mean compromise. From hempcrete houses in European forests to rammed earth retreats on the Australian coast, we document residential projects that are as beautiful as they are responsible – exploring the materials, the makers and the ideas behind a new generation of homes built for the future.
CLT House is a retreat designed to weather in the open
Designed by nArchitects, CLT House is a lake house built almost entirely from exposed cross-laminated timber, scaled down from an unbuilt 2008 scheme.
A Toronto renovation that keeps a century of reuse visible
Candy Loft is a renovation in Toronto by SUSA that keeps a heritage factory’s timber columns and stonework as the feature inside a single, sculptural home.
Haus Hoinka: a straw bale monolith above an open garden
Most straw bale houses use the material just for the walls. Haus Hoinka by Atelier Kaiser Shen uses it for everything – floors, ceilings, roof – all wrapped in clay plaster and pressed into a spruce frame.
Built from the ground it stands on: Lot 8 in Arles, France
The renovation of a former nineteenth-century electrical depot draws its materials, almost entirely, from the few kilometres of southern France around it.
A pavilion grown from mycelium
Sebastian Cox and Studio Weave’s Intelligent Garden pavilion is grown from mycelium and ash felled to dieback – a low-carbon, compostable structure made almost entirely from waste.
A CLT house buried into a hillside
Hello Wood’s CLT House shelters into a sloping site outside Budapest, where a timber structure and green roof make for a home at ease in nature.
The Apple House is an imaginative test of natural materials
A community building with heart, The Apple House features hemp, lime plaster, spruce glulam and an earthen floor – all with a respectful outlook to the surrounding orchard.
La Crêta Farmhouse shows us the art of taking away
The most profound thing Bard Yersin did to this 18th-century Fribourg farmhouse was strip away layers from an earlier renovation. La Crêta is an adaptive reuse project that proves sustainable design’s most powerful tool is restraint.
Reviving a wounded mill: Ennenda Mühle is restitched with care
At a former medieval mill in Ennenda, Switzerland, Atelier Lando Rossmaier begins with careful deconstruction, peeling back layers to reveal and renew the building’s original structure. The adaptive reuse project rebuilds the house using materials sourced within roughly ten miles, including local timber, lime and hemp-lime walls that help regulate moisture in the ageing masonry. Through this restrained approach, the once-abandoned mill is revived as a home and goldsmith’s workshop while preserving the character of its historic fabric.
Inside Casa Wabi’s coastal residences
On a wild stretch of Oaxaca’s Pacific coast, Casa Wabi reimagines the traditional palapa as a minimalist artist’s refuge – pairing open-sided, palm-thatched structures with locally crafted timber furniture and raw, material-led artworks by founder Bosco Sodi.
A case study for building with healthy materials
Brown House demonstrates what’s possible when small urban parcels are treated with an air of experimentation
Explore materials
Cube Acoustic Panels – Autex
Autex Acoustics’ Cube™ range is a high-performance acoustic panel designed for wall and ceiling applications, offering a seamless blend of sound absorption and design flexibility. Lightweight, durable and carbon neutral, it works in spaces where acoustics matter – offices, schools, studios and hospitality venues.
Søuld Eelgrass
Søuld eelgrass cladding and acoustic products revive the heritage of eelgrass materials with modern technology, creating carbon-storing materials with high acoustic performance, safety and durability.
The Good Carbon Farm
The Good Carbon Farm is a New Zealand–based not-for-profit making climate action visible and local by turning plant waste into biochar and returning it to the soil.
