The desert has always inspired architects to rethink living, from Taliesin and Arcosanti to Biosphere 2 and the High Desert Test Sites. The off-grid Arizona House takes one of these radical typologies – the buried “earthship” of the 1970s – and liberates it from the ground to add to this history of visionary houses.

The house is a composition of heavy and light. A thick wall of high-tech adobe brick contains bedrooms, bathroom, compositing toilet, water storage and kitchen. Much as an earthship would use the thermal mass of the earth as a heat sink, the brick absorbs heat during the day and radiates it back into the bedrooms at night. Floating above, a greenhouse separates the open-plan living spaces from the outdoors. It contains a living machine for water filtration and assists airflow from buried underground ducts up through the house to the top of the slanted roof of photovoltaic panels.