Solar House
Culemborg
Architecture*
May, 2014
Culemborg
Architecture*
May, 2014
When Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1940s published the Jacobs House II in the pages of the Ladies Home Journal, his objective was as ambitious as to set a model for ecological small, single-story dwellings. Often L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace, the model homes were characterized by the use of vernacular materials, canopies for natural cooling, natural lighting with clerestory windows for passive solar heating, and a strong visual connection between interior and exterior spaces. Though never adopted on a large scale after the fall of oil prices in post-war America, Wright’s model house reasserts its relevance in the context of the twenty-first century’s pursuit of sustainability. The principles of the Jacobs House II are readopted in the design of this house. Acting as a shell, its dark and rough timber skin shelters a sequence of bright refined interior spaces oriented towards the sun.
*with ORIGINS Architecture (Jamie van Lede & Jeffrey Mulder). Photos by Stijn Poelstra.








