As we continue building new homes across the world, one of the key aspects of the design has to reduce the carbon emissions and footprint of the house. This Water Courtyard House is designed with passive strategies with an array of solar panels on the rooftop that generates more energy than the house uses, a central reflecting pool with inlets to store, filter, and clean rainwater in large containers beneath the house, and geothermal heating and cooling.

The house goes beyond net zero and generates more energy that can be sold back to the grid for a small profit to the owners. With geothermal heating and cooling, the entire house can be maintained at comfortable temperatures using energy supplied by the solar panels to power the system. All collected rainwater that gets filtered and cleaned can be used as general water in the house.