The Key to Sustainable Living: A Spinning, Sinking House

Published Mon, Aug 27th, 2012   Wall Street Daily Research

 

Last month we wrote about a company called elli, which consists of a trio of Spanish architects hell-bent on dealing with the world’s environmental challenges. They created a house that can stay powered completely off the grid, since the owners power it. Owners need to bike, dance and pull on ropes in order for the home’s electronics to run.

If having an energy self-sufficient house isn’t enough for you, though, you can always follow in the footsteps of engineer, Bohumil Lhota. He built a house that can spin on its axis to soak in more sun when it’s cold, saving him cash on the heating bill. Then during the warmer summer months, it can actually lower itself into a hillside, taking advantage of the Earth’s naturally cooler temperature.

Now, Lhota’s house took 20 years to assemble. So it’s not something you can ask your local contractor to set up just yet. But as technology advances (and gets cheaper to produce), don’t be surprised if a few spinning houses pop up around your neighborhood in the next decade.

As Lhota says, “Special engineers would have built this house much quicker than me doing it by myself. I would have been glad if someone had plucked up some courage and assigned the project to some professional firm to build it properly and quickly.”