This ambitious home concept is buried within the sand dunes of Cape Cod, and plans to be completely off-the-grid using solar and wind power. The home’s location within the sand itself helps to regulate the internal temperature, and gives the home a low profile, so not to be a shoreline eyesore.
The interior of the home opens to a beautifully clean floorplan, making using of the large windows to bring in natural light. Designed by Studio Vural, we think it’s a fascinating concept. Our only question remains, what happens with sea level rise? The location looks precariously close to the surf, especially with the estimated sea level rises due to climate change.
The dune is doing half the work here, which is the part that scales down to an ordinary house. Whole Earth Home gets into how siting and insulation decide what the panels have to carry.
Studio Vural is a New York practice led by Selim Vural, and the Dune House was conceived as an off-grid retreat for a site on the outer Cape, with solar panels folded into the landward slope and a bank of small vertical wind turbines rather than a single tall one. The house has stayed a rendering, as far as we know, but the ideas in it have not gone anywhere, and buried or earth-sheltered homes are one of the oldest answers to a hot summer and a cold winter. See a remarkable underground home in Mexico City, a Corten steel house sunk into a Ukrainian forest, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s own Dune House in Indiana.
