House W / Florian Busch Architects

Like the city in the past, the countryside is becoming the new catalyst for change. FB, 2007. Net Zero and Beyond. House W is FBA's first building to generate more energy than it consumes. Counterintuitively, the solution does not result in compactness but in breaking it up. Bucking the (still ongoing) trend to move from the countryside to the city, the clients, a young family living in Tokyo approached FBA to design their new home on the western edge of the Furano Plateau — a 25-km-long and 5-km-wide strip in the center of Hokkaido, renown for its cold powder-snow winters and beautiful summers. Their plan is ambitious: A building independent from the local power grid, generating at least as much energy as it consumes. Net zero. (The built outcome goes further: Over the course of an entire year, House W produces almost twice the energy it consumes.)