Two-by-Two House
The Two-by-Two House is designed for four people, either two cohabitating couples, or a family of two adults and two children. Each person in the house has their own individual room, which can be used as either a bedroom, an office, or just a general space that gives the individual a sense of place and security.

What is unique about these rooms is that you do not enter them via conventional doors, but rather by taking a fork in the hallway and passing through a curving vestibule of sorts. The reason for this feature is to allow an uninterrupted flow of chi, life energy. By not inhibiting the natural flow of energy, it is thought that people will live measurably happier lives.

Far from denying individuals their privacy, this feature actually enhances it: in a conventional room, someone can simply open the door by surprise and see into every corner of the room in a split-second.

But in the Two-by-Two House, if the occupant places beaded curtains both at the entrance to the vestibule, and again at the entrance to the inner room, they are afforded an early-warning system, two lines of "defence."

The private rooms are accorded an extra measure of privacy by the separateness of the corridor: all of the house's "public" rooms (i.e. kitchen, living room, bathroom, entrance) are accessible from the central circulation axis of the house. There is no need to walk down either of the hallways that the private rooms branch out from, unless your intended destination is actually one of the private rooms.

On the second storey of the house, there are two large rooms, one in the west and one in the east. Each of these large rooms is accessible only from two of the private rooms in the house, making each room the private domain of only two people. If the inhabitants of the house are two couples, then the large rooms can be their private bedrooms; if the inhabitants of the house are a nuclear family, then one large room can be parents' private bedroom, and the other room can be the children's playroom.

The large rooms lie directly above the kitchen, laundry room, toilet, and bathroom, rooms that utilize water, so it is no inconvenience to install plumbing in the large rooms, as well. If the rooms are to be used as intimate spaces by couples, then it would desirable for them to have washing stations close by. The large rooms are quite large, so a couple could even invest in a Jacuzzi bathtub for two, if it suited them. Partitioning the tub from the rest of the large room would be optional.

There are no other rooms on the second storey. The spaces above the four private individual rooms, on the north and south sides of the house, can be used as private balconies, or, preferably, as rooftop gardens, to grow food. In fact, the bathing facilities in the large rooms described previously can alternately be constructed inside of these rooftop gardens.

Although it sounds strange, it actually makes perfect sense from a permaculture perspective, where every aspect should ideally fulfill several different functions, making it extra-efficient and indispensable to the whole. Greenhouses and showers and baths both require a temperature higher than other rooms in the house -- why not combine them, and save energy resources?

Taking a bath in the middle of lush vegetation should be visually preferable to even the most artistic walls of flat ceramic tiles.

No room can be constructed in the centre of the house on the second storey, because there needs to be a large skylight there. Directly below, on the first storey, is the large communal living room. Because it is smack-dab in the middle of the house, it is not adjacent to any outside walls, so it does not benefit from any windows to the outside. By giving the room a much-needed skylight, it is filled with natural light. The private hallways adjacent to the living room have skylights, as well.

Although it would seem that the private nature of many of the spaces in the house would lead to the inhabitants of the house sequestering themselves off from each other, this effect is completely counter-balanced by the large open-concept nature of the communal living room. Again, if, in nature, the most important aspect of the whole is always located at its epicentre, then the shared space of the Two-by-Two House predominates as its most important aspect.

The name of the Two-by-Two House is an allusion to the biblical tale of Noah's Ark, in which a male and female of every species was preserved, saved from a world-engulfing flood. I don't mean to suggest that this house is what's going to save humanity, far from it. But this attempt to explore and examine the relationship between private space and public space is vital research that must be conducted if we are to redefine our understanding of these concepts in a way that will allow the human race to continue to exist on Earth.