Studio Vural, a boutique architecture firm in Brooklyn, designs an off-the-grid Dune House in Cape Cod. The project is situated on the beach principal Selim Vural vacations every year and was inspired by a squid’s rainbow flash at a nighttime fishing expedition. Experiencing the colorful flash Mr. Vural thought; “if squids can power themselves, so should houses”.

The un-plugged house has an autonomous power network, energized by a vast solar field and miniature wind turbines, designed to produce more clean energy than consumed. This high energy efficiency is enabled by burrowing the house under the dunes, anchoring the foundation into geothermal temperatures of sand, consequently blanketing %80 of the envelope. The Dune House is what Mr. Vural calls the next generation of hyper-sustainable houses which “must be aggressively pursued to turn the tables on climate change”. The concept also embraces the recent research on absorptive building materials and soil engineering for a sponge effect on carbon mass.

Vural says, the very pursuit of technology that brought us here will also be the savior; tech driven agriculture, soil engineering, carbon absorptive building materials, smart remote devices are finally cleaning & connecting us back to nature, where we belong.

The design is also a success in natural preservation since it is only recognizable from sea, blending seamlessly with nature; gently immersed not imposed. At the Dune House, human, bird, architecture and landscape blend as an inseparable whole as technology makes peace with nature at last.

Credits:  Selim Vural – principal architect, Angela Tasevska & Sumeyye Ozturk - junior architects. Renderings: Dom Wipas