The Wheelhouse Compound
The Wheelhouse Compound is a new kind of 21st century habitation laboratory. It was designed to explore ways in which the built environment can improve the lives of those occupying these spaces by increasing their awareness of the environment as well as increasing their pleasure and excitement of everyday life. The approach taken here is to create an amazing never-before-seen place in which to live in the form of a great circular, solar powered, futuristic machine. This is a machine for living that is designed to operate mostly off of the conventional utility grid, and made of eco-friendly materials.
The compound consists of a center core support structure topped with a large circular solar cell array that makes electricity, stores it in batteries, provides space heating, and heats water from the sun, for all of the occupants. This circular solar cell array is also designed to collect rainwater and store it for use in and around the compound. A cylindrical shaped column that contains a staircase and elevator support the solar array. The column ends at the ground level where it is surrounded by a large circular open space that is used for public gatherings by the occupants of the compound.
Eight energy efficient and compactly designed houses are connected to the perimeter of a large wheel shaped support structure. In addition to the power supplied by the solar array, each of the houses are naturally lit and ventilated. Each house has a separate walkway leading to it from the center column. The houses and wheel shaped support structure are elevated above the surrounding landscape on slim support columns. Each of the owners of the eight houses has their own personal garden located under the wheel shaped support structure, which can be watered with the collected and stored rainwater.
The hope is that this design for a self-contained compound will inspire new and more eco-friendly ways in which to live in the 21st century, and beyond.
Status: Unbuilt
