A stunning home in Morocco demonstrates that you can live off-grid and still live in luxury.
The home, located in the desert in Al Haouz, Morocco, is made from thick mud bricks and uses two ancient water systems called a mesref and a khettara to supply it with water for free, Dwell reported.
The mesref is a seasonal water channel filled a few times a year for agriculture, and the khettara is an ancestral system of water drainage through galleries — together, these devices have enabled people in the area to irrigate fields for centuries. The house was built so that it follows these two systems, and it helps keep the house cool while supporting a lush green garden with native plants.
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The house also makes use of the sun for natural light and heating. The house has defined openings in the walls lined with colorful zellige tiles to control the light entering the house, and when this is combined with pools of water and vegetation, it helps create a microclimate that is cool and comfortable in the hot desert. Using the soil, sunlight, and water like this allows the home to be completely off-grid.
Living off-grid is a great way to save money on utility bills while also making your home more climate resilient especially in the face of increasing severe weather events.
While going off-grid completely is probably not feasible for most people, there are ways to make your home less dependent on the grid, such as installing solar panels with a battery storage system or installing a solar water heater so that the hot water you use in your home is heated for free.
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More people are choosing to live off-grid to cope with the increasing frequency of power outages from severe weather events. Creating an off-grid home can look different for everyone, with some people choosing to convert their homes while others have created off-grid homes from shipping containers and Quonset huts.
Whatever these homes look like, they cost a lot less to run and also reduce the amount of harmful pollution heating our planet.
Regarding the desert house in Morocco, architect Leopold Banchini told Dwell: "The off-grid house uses the sun, the soil, and the water available on-site to be fully self-sustainable."
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