The Tinbeerwah house and studio keep a low profile among the site’s eucalyptus trees.

Angela Brooks and son Calder revel in the benefits of free solar energy, cheerfully opening the living room’s big glass doors when it’s time to play.

Power Pod Convenience and functionality blend into elegant design with Coalesse’s PowerPod. Designed by Scott Wilson and MINIMAL, PowerPod delivers two functions in one. When needed, the PowerPod houses six power outlets with built-in surge-suppression. When not needed, the outlet is converted to a sleek pencil organizer and accessory tray. Energy-saving on/off switch reduces vampire power consumption.

A Kitchen B Dining Room C Lounge D Master Bedroom E Bedroom F Bathroom G Bridge

Bias Block : Walnut This handmade walnut block is not only rich and beautiful but practical for catching juices when carving the holiday bird or roast.

Keep the Home Fires Burning Using wood for heat and energy keeps the Wadhams’ environmental footprint small and helps avoid the use of coal- or nuclear-powered electricity. Come winter, the couple relies on an Esse wood-burning stove for cooking, heating, and feeding a set of small radiators. In summer, they use the stove’s electric component, which is powered by solar energy.

On the hill behind the house, a wind-powered well brings water from a 150-foot-deep hole to the surface. That water then flows to the home as needed with gravity's helping hand.

Power House High This structural reboot of a former power plant now has a much different purpose. Another post-industrial, LEED Platinum-certified showpiece, this century-old structure, which once housed rows of massive coal burners that provided all the power for Sears, Roebuck & Company's 55-acre corporate headquarters (as well as the air pressure for the pnuematic mail tubes), now boasts a pair of charter schools.

Site work in progress.

The bottom floor contains the kitchen and the dining area; the lounge is upstairs. The cabinets are from Ikea, as are the table and chairs, and the child’s Tripp Trapp chair is from Stokke.

Future site view. Overgrown 21+ acre forested site.

Collage of site photos overlaid on top of previous owner's site plan. Site was unoccupied when purchased.

Designer Sue Macintosh chose the Farrow & Ball Off-Black paint for the master bedroom.

OPA wanted to free themselves from logic imposed by a grid and considered various inefficient configurations of shipping containers. They settled on a combination of options, seen in the trikselion shape here. The Presidio, San Francisco, California. Mobile exhibition pavilion for the For-Site Foundation. © Tim Griffith.

Le Corbusier and the Power of Photography, published by Thames & Hudson.

Juxtaposed:Power by Mike and Maakie.

A closer look at "Power Up."

Flower Power by Parrott is a sensor that tells you, via a smartphone app, how much sunlight, moisture, and fertilizer your plants are getting (as well as whether they are too hot or too cold), and suggests adjustments so you can take better care of them.

Smart Power Strip One of the best things about home automation is that it not only makes life easier for you, but it can save you money and the environment at the same time. A smart power strip is a great way to do this, as it will detect when your appliances are doing nothing but wasting energy, and turn them off.

site design group, ltd. The award-winning landscape firm behind sites such as Mary Bartelme Park took over the penthouse of the historic Crane Company Building, designed by Holabird & Roche in 1912, and turned it into a playful, open workspace.

For more informartion on the project, visit gracefarms.org.

The site of much permit-wrangling.

A wider look at the building's siting.

Cor-Ten steel from a ship building yard clads the new structure, which connects via a glass “bridge” to a rebuilt stone farmhouse containing the bedrooms.

McAvoy worked with builder Stephen Campbell on structural elements such as the glass floor and walls.

Architect Andrew McAvoy created an earth-sheltered house in Scotland for Gavin and Angelique Robb and children Scarlett and Gus.

The glass balustrade and floor were sourced in Germany and installed by James Aiken. Angelique, the founder of Papillon Designs and Landscaping, clustered plantings around the exterior glass addition.

Main bath ( hers )

A collage of images showing the site and scenes from the design and site preparation process.

Bo's Artes. ( Bo Knows Artes. )

Surprisingly, this cozy and partially earth-sheltered family home—which is, according to Gavin, "one step away from Passive House standards"—started life as a series of derelict and semi- derelict farmstead buildings in raw and rural Aberdeenshire, in the hinterland of Scotland’s northeast coast. For the new structure, Grace & Webb fabricated a laser-cut steel balcony.