The Kayenta Desert House is designed as a retirement home for a couple from Alaska. The property is located within the Kayenta Development in Ivins, Southern Utah, within a harsh, challenging desert climate that requires a very careful design implementation within the fragile desert eco system. The design explores passive strategies including optimal orientation, indoor-outdoor connections, passive shading, thermal massing, winter solar heat gain, earth tube technologies and more. The goal is to provide a building that includes all natural elements, at the same time provides protection and is as independent from any forms of fossil fuels in operation as possible.

Coming Soon

Project Blackboard: 

Design: 2019 - 2020

Building size: 2,800 SF

Lot size: 1.5 acre

Designed to Passive-to-Active House Standard

Architecture and Energy Performance Simulation: Atelier Jörg Rügemer

Client: R. Baldwin, C. Smurthwaite, Anchorage, AK

Contractor: TBD

Structural Engineering: TBD

Net Zero Mechanical Technology: TBD 

Photo credits: Atelier Jörg Rügemer