Architect Hafsa Burt Raises the Bar on Climate-Resilient Housing

A small house in Jackson, California, runs entirely without fossil fuels, harvests rainwater in 2,500-gallon cisterns, and upcycles its drywall and exterior wood cladding from the construction surplus of a nearby project. Its architect, Hafsa Burt, calls it Null.

Burt and her studio, hb:a Architects — which operates from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Castro Valley — designed the house as a prototype for climate-resilient architecture. The client needed a home for the manager of a 9-acre site, where Null occupies a plot shared with an existing building.

The project grew out of Box Lab, an initiative Burt launched in 2018. She describes it as 'focused on resilience measures in a changing climate for vulnerable communities subject to more than one challenge.'

Null sits in a part of Northern California where, according to Burt, median income is 70% lower than the rest of the state. The area also faces wildfires and significant temperature swings between summer and winter. Those conditions shaped the brief.

'It was important not to rely on any source of fossil fuels for any of the operations and to use the site in its existing character, welcoming the wildlife that frequents the reservoir and can be heard and seen running around,' Burt says.

A testbed, not a cabin

Burt frames the house as an experiment in rethinking single-family housing rather than a one-off retreat. 'The project is exploring residential design in a changing world as a response to man-made and natural elements. It isn't a cabin; instead, it shifts thinking about the future of single-family housing, following a just-enough philosophy in program, systems, materials and spaces,' she says.

The structure uses structural steel with carefully insulated walls and ceilings. Burt kept materials to a 'bare minimum,' covering the scheme's needs without 'drowning in excessive exterior and interior finishes as a design language.'

The low-carbon approach extends from construction to operation. The building achieves positive energy through onsite solar power, and its orientation maximizes site elements. Rainwater harvested in the 2,500-gallon cisterns overflows to a reservoir.

The house occupies an existing flat pad. In what Burt calls 'a machine-like approach, which I insist on as an honest expression,' the building's systems are left exposed to showcase their workings instead of hiding them.

Systems thinking

For Burt, the design process began with the program. 'Exploring a paradigm shift in residential programming focused on the future of this project type using a systems-thinking approach,' she says, is what makes the project special. 'Everything for me starts with the program, and I find it quite exciting to take apart and reassemble a more efficient version of an existing problem.'

She notes that environmental strategies 'weren't an add-on or late-stage consideration but were integrated at ideation.'

Null now functions as both a comfortable, boutique private home and a replicable model. The prototype can be adapted to different areas and terrains where architecture for vulnerable communities is needed — and, its architect argues, well beyond them.