Welcome to our home! It’s the first ENERGY STAR Qualified home in B.C., which means that it uses 30% less energy to function as the incredibly comfortable living space that it is. This represents a savings of approximately 3 months of energy bills. The home has a passive solar design, 10” thick walls, “tuned” windows, and is wrapped in a 3” blanket of Rock Wool. This means that we can retire on a winter’s evening with the household temperature at 20 degrees Celsius and with no additional heating, when we rise in the morning the household temperature is 19 degrees Celsius.
It’s a ROUND home, which means that the house literally “embraces” the human beings who reside within it. It also means that the temperatures circulate in the space in a naturally thermal dynamic movement. We recently spoke with a woman beekeeper who reported that her group was experimenting with round shaped bee hives (as compared to the conventional rectangular beehives), she stated that the bees in the round hives were less aggressive, more healthy and produced more honey than the same variety of bees in rectangular hives. Just like the bees, we experience greater harmony, more creativity and more flow by living in our round home.
It’s an ART home, which means that it features many custom details like; Gorgeous exterior and interior Timberframing, a featured Japanese Spirit Post in the living room, an inlaid pebble stream in the entryway, a custom Bamboo marquetry door, Shoji doors throughout the home, curved hallways and stairwells, handmade handrail brackets, stunning built-in window seats, Italian Porcelain in the ensuite spa and a custom kitchen deck that is built around an ancient Ponderosa Pine tree. The principles of Feng Shui were used as guidance in the design of this residence.
It’s a GREEN, SLOW home, which means that, like in the Slow Food movement we have a focus on creating homes that are healthy, comfortable and gentle on the environment. Thus, in this home, the finishes are natural finishes, the floors are renewable cork, there are connected, covered outdoor rooms, the wood is locally sourced, every room has natural lighting and natural ventilation, and the countertops in the kitchens and bathrooms are handmade bamboo.
It’s a FAST, PRE-FAB home, which means that the wall panels were built off-site with the insulation, doors, windows and siding included. The set-up of the home was low impact on the site, low-waste, highly accurate and extremely quick, this means that no valuable materials were adversely affected by bad weather and the cost savings in reduced wages was significant.
It’s ONE OF FOUR MANDALAS on our 1.5 acre property, which means that we also built a round Studio (300 sq.ft.), a round Garage, and a round Greenhouse. This is a unique and beautiful project that we would love to share with you and others!