Not your usual soundtrack to a suburban morning: the soft clucking of chickens in their coop below your bedroom window. But for Farah Agarwal and Arjen Aarnoudse, cofounders of architecture firm The Way We Build, it is one of the joys of living in the house they designed for themselves and their two children on a corner lot in the Dutch town of Driemond, on the outer edge of Amsterdam.

“It is every architect’s dream to design and build their own home,” says Arjen, explaining how leaving the city center allowed them to fulfill theirs. But in doing so they accepted another challenge: to support the municipality’s sustainability agenda. Inspired by the aesthetic mandate that every new home in the neighborhood have a facade made of wood, Arjen and Farah took things further, doing their utmost to make the house as green as possible.

They built it entirely of wood and decided to make it much smaller—1,453 square feet, as opposed to the 2,400 their permit allowed. Limiting the size freed room in the budget for sustainability measures, helped keep energy costs manageable, and provided space for a yard.

The couple created a compact, 33-by- 33-foot two-level plan, which they framed in timber. On the first level, ceiling beams made of superstrong laminated veneer lumber stretch from wall to wall, allowing for an open interior around a central, freestanding box. Constructed of prepainted, green, medium-density fiberboard (MDF) the box contains a full bath, the kitchen, storage, a Murphy bed for guests, and stairs leading to bedrooms on the second level. The kids love to run around the space and sometimes play hide-and-seek there. On the south side of the house, an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling glass sliders leads to a patio and gardens.

The living area has a woodburning stove, though it’s used more to provide a cozy feeling, a place where you can drink hot chocolate on cold winter days, than for staying warm, says Farah, since the home’s interior temperature is well-regulated thanks to insulation made from recycled clothing.

On a day-to-day basis, energy comes from a geothermal pump under the garden and from solar panels on the roof. The panels generate enough electricity to keep both the house and two cars, one electric and one hybrid, running.

Also in the garden, which Arjen has found a passion for tending, is a rain barrel for water collection. That supplements a more robust system surrounding the house. There are no drain pipes; they would have disrupted the home’s tidy appearance.

Instead, rain simply runs over the red cedar shingles (all 7,500 of them were placed by Arjen and a contractor friend) and falls into gravel strips surrounding the house. From there it seeps down into an underground collector, from which it is recycled for watering the garden in summer.

“The morning light is amazing. From ourkitchen window we can see the sun rising overthe poplars along the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal.”
—Farah Agarwal, architect and resident

The couple’s home has been a proving ground—for themselves as architects and builders and as an example of where the bar for sustainability can be set for new construction in the area. Farah and Arjen have developed a new outlook since setting out to create their dream home six years back.

“When we started, this way of working was all very new,” says Farah. “We have seen that all change during the course of this project. This is now the new normal. And that makes us optimistic about the future.”

Project Credits:

Architecture & Builder: The Way We Build

Structural Engineering: Breed Integrated Design

Landscape Design: The Way We Build

Interior Design: The Way We Build

Cabinetry: The Way We Build

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An Architect Couple Trade Size for Sustainability in Their Family’s Amsterdam Home