Designing and building a home in the high desert is challenging enough thanks to extreme temperature shifts, but all the more so for those who do not want to simply shut themselves off from their surroundings and live in an air-conditioned box – like the engaged clients who hired architect Lloyd Russell to design their sustainable desert residence.

A humble rusted metal canopy covers the house itself, providing essential shade to the entire structure as well as all exterior porches and patios. Combined with full-height sliding walls and windows, this plan enables the home to be cooled passively but also lends it a rustic aesthetic shell that blends it with the surrounding landscape and historical desert industrial and farm buildings.

The home is populated with all kinds of quirky recycled materials and fixtures, a strange blend of modern and traditional in its look as well as its structure and other physical components. The net effect is a home that looks comfortable and traditional but is also modern and functional, combining conventional aesthetics with green strategies to create an inexpensive an eco-friendly hybrid form.