When architect Dominic Stevens fled the city of Dublin, Ireland to live in a biodegradable house on the countryside with his wife and kids, Dwell magazine called the project "rural living at its best."
Now, Stevens is undoubtedly using that description to win over potential buyers as he puts the house up for sale and heads for equally green pastures nearby. "I built a new, smaller version close by," Stevens explained to the Huffington Post.
The reason for his move isn't so pleasant, he says. (He and his wife are divorcing.) But the home that they built in the village of Cloone in northwest Ireland, still is.
According to Dwell writer Virginia Gardiner, who visited Stevens and his family back in 2006, Stevens and his wife purchased a five-acre lot in Cloone for around $12,500, and built the house, which embodied their vision of sustainability. That means they went as low-tech as possible, used locally sourced materials, and minimized the building’s footprint, creating a space that will actually vanish if left unattended for a decade or so.
"The house’s spare materials—raw timber, panel board, and glass—form a neutral frame for the hospitable green land outside," Gardiner writes.
Built in modules, or timber-frame boxes that can be added or subtracted to meet changing space requirements, the house is continually under progress and is "the ultimate in green architecture ... [built] so that it can be returned to the earth when its useful life is over," as described by Apartment Therapy last year.
For now, the house still has plenty of uses, if not for Stevens himself.
Check out photos of Stevens' experiment in sustainability in the slideshow below and contact him directly at dominicstevens@eircom.net for more info.
Dominic Stevens' Biodegradable House
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