Transformer Home: Sliding House Blends Luxury With Radical Environmental Performance

Mobile homes are very popular these days for reasons that have only environmental awareness in common with Sliding House. Downsizing and working from home have pushed mobile homes, be they tiny houses, bus or van conversions, and RVs repurposed to full-time living quarters, into the spotlight. People want to be able to travel more, to do so without leaving their homes behind, and to cut down expenses, so mobile homes are a perfect fit.

Sliding House is still a mobile home, though it never leaves its location in Suffolk, England, on a piece of land described by architect Alex de Rijke as "a combination of rolling England and agricultural Holland." Completed in 2009 by de Rijke's firm dRMM and the recipient of several prestigious industry awards over the next couple of years, Sliding House is an unconventional take on the conventional, barn-inspired country family home, with a heavy dose of luxury and an even heftier focus on environmental efficiency. It's very cool to look at, too.

As its name hints, Sliding House is a house that slides. It's not the most subtle out there and definitely not the only house to feature a sliding outer layer, but it's perhaps the largest in size.

The home is comprised of three different buildings, one being the house, the other the annex, and the third the garage. The peculiarity that gives it its name is the outer layer of stained larch, which moves on hidden tracks at the press of a button.

It takes under 6 minutes to transform the house or to make it react to its environment, with the wooden layer moving forward or backward, either to reveal or to enclose the aluminum and glass atrium in the front section. This makes for the most awesome party trick, but its functionality goes beyond entertainment: de Rijke once compared the outer layer to a puffer jacket that you can remove when the sun is hot and put back on when it's colder.

By exposing the house to the sun and insulating it in cold temperatures, the outer layer gives the home extreme environmental performance. The electric motors are powered by the sun and the wind, as is the home, which is entirely off the grid. Sliding House is a barn-like family home with all the trappings of a luxurious life but rendered self-sufficient and more efficient through this innovative design.

The annex and the garage are not integrated under the sliding roof, only the main residence is. It comprises two more layers besides the larch-clad one: red rubber for insulation, and the aluminum and glass structure. Depending on the direction of movement of the roof, spaces can be opened or closed, and new doors appear or are "erased." This home might not have wheels, but it does have transformative features that put it in a league of its own – more so than the fact that it's self-sufficient.

For example, the upstairs bathroom becomes an outdoor space when the outer layer moves forward – hopefully, not against the desire of whoever is inside it. When that happens, another previously-hidden space comes into view: a small courtyard slash terrace in the rear, and the front of the house becomes a shielded terrace. There's also the possibility of removing the "shield” altogether and use it as a free-standing barn, leaving the second layer exposed to the elements.

"It differs from most designs that are fixed where you have to assume that the climate is the same all year round. This structure is like wearing a puffer jacket," de Rijke said of its thermal control abilities upon its completion in 2009.

The same desire to offer maximum thermal control and create a home that breaks the mold in design led to the creation of ANNA Stay Cabin in the Netherlands, a wooden lodge with two sliding sections that can open it completely to the elements. The difference between the two is in costs: ANNA Stay has manually-actuated runners to thank for the transformative feature and is a prefab, low-cost take on the concept that Sliding House embodies.

Since we're on the topic of money, Sliding House has served as a family home since completion but is now back on the market, asking £1 million ($1.24 million at the current exchange rate). The listing agency seems to rely mostly on word of mouth and the existing hype to secure a buyer. It's not even that surprising if you think about it. When you have a mobile house as unique as this, and with so many touted eco-credentials, who cares about specifics like total living surface or the number of bedrooms?