Solar Passive Home Design Ideas, Orientation and Photos

Orientation, glazing, thermal mass, insulation and cross ventilation — free comfort designed into the plan before a single system is bought. Solar passive design is the cheapest performance available in a house, because it costs nothing to point rooms in the right direction. Living areas facing the sun, service rooms and garages on the cold or hot side, glazing sized and shaded for the orientation it faces, and a plan narrow enough that air can move through it. Get these right and mechanical heating and cooling become occasional rather than constant. Glazing and shading work as a pair. Sun facing glass with an eave or louvre sized to admit low winter sun and exclude high summer sun delivers free heat exactly when it is wanted. West facing glass is the hardest to manage and the most likely to overheat a house, so it should be minimised, screened externally, or protected by a verandah. External shading beats internal blinds every time, because it stops the heat before it enters the room. Thermal mass and insulation then hold the result. A concrete slab or masonry wall inside the insulated envelope, positioned where winter sun can reach it, absorbs warmth by day and...

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Home Designs

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete and Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete, Spotted Gum Battens and Matte Black Steel Detailing, Mass-Planted Hedging, Feature Palms and. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com — Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete, Spotted Gum Battens and Matte Black Steel Detailing, Mass-Planted Hedging, Feature Palms and Deep Mulched Garden Beds, featuring a Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water Bowl and Garage Screening

Futuristic Backyard Concept 02 is part of our Home Designs collection — one of 512 large-format widescreen concept visuals in this section. It is presented here at full size so you can study the layout, the planting, the surfaces and the way light falls across the design before you commit to building anything on your own block.

Front yards, backyards, side boundaries and complete house concepts, including the tiny home series. Use this concept as a starting point: note the proportions between built form and greenery, where shade and shelter sit, how paths and paved areas move people through the space, and which materials repeat to hold the whole scheme together.

Every visual on this site is a design idea created for Home Design Photos. Browse the rest of the Home Designs collection, or open the complete image catalogue to see every home, garden, pool, pergola, furniture, lighting and beach house concept in one place.

← Low-Line Courtyard Home Design with Textured Off-White Render and Covered Alfresco Dining Terrace Warm Minimalist House Design with Eco Friendly Materials and Sunken Firepit Lounge and Generous →

More Home Designs concepts

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete and Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete, Spotted Gum Battens and Matte Black Steel Detailing, Mass-Planted Hedging, Feature Palms and Deep Mulched Garden Beds, featuring a Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water Bowl and Garage Screening

Low-Line Courtyard Home Design with Textured Off-White Render and Covered Alfresco Dining Terrace

Low-Line Courtyard Home Design with Textured Off-White Render, Travertine Paving and Smoked Glass Balustrades, Layered Native Planting and a Clipped Buffalo Lawn, featuring a Covered Alfresco Dining Terrace and Built-In Outdoor Kitchen, finished with Sculptural Feature Planting and Inviting

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete and Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water

Split-Level Modern Home Design with Recycled Brick and Spacious Rear Backyard and BBQ Grill

Split-Level Modern Home Design with Recycled Brick, Vertical Cedar Screening and Zinc Roof Sheeting, Espaliered Trees, Box Hedging and Fine-Leaf Groundcover, featuring a Spacious Rear Backyard and BBQ Grill Entertaining Area, balanced by Clean Sightlines, Shaded Retreats and Relaxed

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete and Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water

Architectural Home Design with Limestone Cladding and Poolside Cabana, Sun Deck and Evening Entertaining

Architectural Home Design with Limestone Cladding, Warm Oak Soffits and Slim Charcoal Aluminium Frames, Tropical Foliage, Frangipani and Screening Bamboo, featuring a Poolside Cabana, Sun Deck and Evening Entertaining Zone, balanced by Clean Sightlines, Shaded Retreats and Relaxed Family

Complete image catalogue

Granny Flat and Backyard Studio Design Ideas and Photos

Second dwellings that add real value — siting, privacy, services, light and the layouts that work for family, guests, work or rental.

A second dwelling in the backyard is the most practical small building most people will ever construct. It houses a parent, an adult child, a guest, a home office or a tenant, and it does so on land already owned and already serviced. The design challenge is not the building, which is simple, but the relationship between it and the main house — privacy, outlook, access and noise all have to be resolved on the site plan.

Siting decides success. Position the studio so its main windows do not look directly into the existing bedrooms, give it its own small piece of private outdoor space rather than a share of the family yard, and provide access that does not require walking past the main living room windows. A separate path down the side boundary, a screen of planting between the two buildings, and a clear front door with its own number make the dwelling feel independent.

Plan for one thing done well. A studio layout with a kitchenette along one wall, a bathroom in the corner, a bed zone screened by joinery and a table by the window suits guests and work perfectly. A one bedroom layout, with a genuine separate bedroom, is what makes long term occupancy or rental viable. In both cases ceiling height, a north or sun facing window and cross ventilation matter far more than an extra square metre of floor.

Tiny Homes design ideas photo from the Granny Flat and Backyard Studio Design Ideas and Photos feature. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com

Services and compliance are where budgets move. Sewer connection and its fall, water and power supply capacity, stormwater detention, fire separation from boundaries, setbacks, site coverage and parking are all determined by local rules, and they vary enormously. Check them before drawing anything. Get them right and a well built studio adds usable accommodation, rental income and resale value out of proportion to its size.

House Design Photos is a HUGE Library Gallery and Directory of Home Design Photos

Solar Passive Home Design Ideas, Orientation and Photos

Contemporary Family Home Design with Board-Formed Concrete and Wide Front Entry Court, Feature Water

More Home Designs concepts

Granny Flat and Backyard Studio Design Ideas and Photos