Off-Grid, Solar-Powered Isolée Retreat Opens Like a Cupboard

Dutch design group <a href="http://www.tjep.com/">Tjep</a> has designed an off-grid retreat called <a href="http://www.tjep.com/studio/works/interiors/isolee">Isolée</a> that opens like a cupboard. This quirky concept also incorporates a roof-mounted “solar tree” that rotates to collect all the solar energy required to power the retreat. In designing the project, Frank Tjepkema and his team embraced a variety of integrated technologies to create a building that is wonderfully self-sufficient.

Isolée is a three-story structure that is designed on a concrete pier foundation in order to limit the building’s impact on the site. The building seems to be standing on feet, like an old stand-alone cupboard you might find in your grandmother’s kitchen.

The retreat is comprised of a system of sustainable features that ensure minimal fuel consumption.

A stove and heat pipe system provides the heating; the wood-burning stove heats water that is then pumped through the walls.

The low-impact off-grid home opens like a cupboard, with plenty of daylighting pouring through.

The shuttered façade opens on hinges to expose the interior of the retreat to the surroundings. This mechanism would be linked electronically to a monitoring computer so that it would close if a storm or hazard was approaching.

Isolée is topped with a “solar tree” that sprouts from the roof like a flower, and rotates intelligently to follow the path of the sun around the retreat. This solar array provides all of the building's electricity.