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

Building with wood was a requirement by the city, but it was their decision to build smaller—and smarter—for the sake of efficiency.
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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.

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