An Aluminum-Clad Green Energy Home in England

Architect Paul Archer has made a career of adapting and extending historic English houses for dozens of clients in and around London. But when his mother and stepfather decided to move out of their 17th-century stone farmhouse, they wanted him to start from scratch to achieve, as he puts it, "something modern and low-maintenance." Making a tall order more vertiginous still, they also wanted zero-carbon energy demands and to have plenty of space to garden.