A home should provide the basic things a human needs: creative shelter, clean energy, healthy food, fresh water, and help to build healthy soil. Let's renew our vision of a modern home.
This sounds like a dream! I have always dreamed of my family being able to live like this. 🥰 And I love the sun management aspect of the house as I’ve always loved the design of Earthships.
Working with the sun and nature makes so much sense, it's a funny thing we don't leverage that more! It's just a bit of math and pre-planning with the home design :)
I've explored such home designs since the 1970s. I like your design a lot. You've incorporated the basics, plus a lot of features I hadn't even thought of. The only suggestions that come to mind, would be to add Earth-berming to the East, North and West walls, and make the design modular, so that people could start small, then build on as circumstances allow. Well done!
Yeah, totally! Cheapest way to moderate temps without all the problems of weight/leaks etc. of full underground. Spent the winter in a 2000 sq ft passive solar bermed house in the Chilcotin district of BC, which gets -40. The whole place was heated just fine with a Fisher PapaBear-type stove. Can send you pics or post to Acorn Labs page, if you like. Cheers!
I live in the suburbs, as do many others, and moving to a rural area is not always a great option. This book by David Holmgren has so many fantastic ideas for retro-fitting your suburban home to be more resilient. https://retrosuburbia.com/
You and me both Jeffrey! We're currently building the first prototype to help teach others about the process :) What aspects do you like the most, about the Acorn Home?
This sounds like a dream! I have always dreamed of my family being able to live like this. 🥰 And I love the sun management aspect of the house as I’ve always loved the design of Earthships.
Working with the sun and nature makes so much sense, it's a funny thing we don't leverage that more! It's just a bit of math and pre-planning with the home design :)
I've explored such home designs since the 1970s. I like your design a lot. You've incorporated the basics, plus a lot of features I hadn't even thought of. The only suggestions that come to mind, would be to add Earth-berming to the East, North and West walls, and make the design modular, so that people could start small, then build on as circumstances allow. Well done!
Thank you Andre! I love the earth berming concept. Sounds like a hybrid earthship / WOFATI / hobbit hole :)
Yeah, totally! Cheapest way to moderate temps without all the problems of weight/leaks etc. of full underground. Spent the winter in a 2000 sq ft passive solar bermed house in the Chilcotin district of BC, which gets -40. The whole place was heated just fine with a Fisher PapaBear-type stove. Can send you pics or post to Acorn Labs page, if you like. Cheers!
Please send pics! That sounds really solid. What type of roof did it have?
Another great article! So looking forward to modernizing and "Acornizing" my half-acre house into something truly sustainable and productive!
Joe, for a half acre home in the suburbs this book would be perfect for you:
https://retrosuburbia.com/
I live in the suburbs, as do many others, and moving to a rural area is not always a great option. This book by David Holmgren has so many fantastic ideas for retro-fitting your suburban home to be more resilient. https://retrosuburbia.com/
It's my family's dream to live in an Acorn Home
You and me both Jeffrey! We're currently building the first prototype to help teach others about the process :) What aspects do you like the most, about the Acorn Home?