Rotating house to catch sun & wind: Made in Chiang Rai

06 ธันวาคม 2556

To follow sunlight or cooling wind, house can be rotated, during floods lifted & earthquake-resistant basement is yet another feature.

The rotating house is equipped with highly efficient electrical appliances, water-saving sanitary ware, roof and wall insulation and a smart home system that enables the owner to cut energy consumption by 30%.

ARCHITECTURE

Nobody's laughing now

An architect has proved the doubters wrong by developing a house that can rotate by 360 degrees.

6/12/2013

Yuthana Praiwan

Five years ago, the house that Yuttana Piyatrakul was trying to develop and construct was laughed at as a waste of time and an impossible mission.

But the chief executive of Green Design 360 Degree Co has realised his innovative dream - a house that can rotate by 360 degrees to save energy and enable residents to stay cool throughout the year.

The first pilot project was created in his home town of Chiang Rai with a patent registered for its basement system.

Mr Yuttana's innovative house has passed through thousands of test runs over the last few years, and in 2010 he succeeded in sorting out the house's waterworks and electricity system.

The house can be rotated to take advantage of sunlight or cooling winds. It is also designed to be lifted when flooded, while the basement is earthquake-resistant.

The house is decorated with highly efficient electrical appliances, water-saving sanitary ware, roof and wall insulation and a smart home system that enables the owner to cut energy consumption by 30%.

Mr Yuttana says the next step he is developing is how to replace wood with lightweight building materials to reduce the 40-square-metre house's weight from 5 tonnes and its investment cost from 2.8 million baht. A solar rooftop is also in the design process.

"Growing big trees to help keep a house cool may be not enough now, as climate change is too severe, so we decided to create house that can be rotated," said Mr Yuttana, a former architect at Plan Architect Co, Thailand's leading architect firm.

Climate change is also affecting wind direction, he said.

Word of mouth is still the most effective marketing tool. His innovation has not only drawn overwhelming interest from property developers and architects but has also won the Thailand Energy Award 2013 from the Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency.

After the house won the award, Mr Yuttana was approached by nearly 20 interested parties to help develop rotating houses, mostly in Chiang Rai.

His company also plans to develop knock-down parts for the moving house and is now in talks with potential partners in an unnamed northern province.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/383424/nobody-laughing-now