And also, quite noticeably, takes up a HELLUVA lot of space in the middle of the room. I wonder if theres a valve to stop it filling with ice water in the winter?

It's also kind of ugly. Not exactly "handsome".

New homes in the SWestern US should all be being built with cisterns.

But that one is fug-ugly. It looks like the ceiling has a horrible tumor.

It wouldn't look so out of place if the general house design was more curvilinear.

reminds me of a water leak mentioned in a previous posting: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/10/water-leak-in-overhe.html

I live in Victoria and its worth pointing out that most of the state is under water usage restrictions due to a long-running drought.

In country areas, almost every home and business now has a rainwater tank. The rainwater tank industry is booming and there is an incredible cottage industry built up around rainwater and wastewater. Every supermarket and hardware store is selling dozens of "greywater hoses" every day to divert the waste water from washing machines onto gardens.

For city dwellers, tanks are made now to fit under houses, or into narrow spaces, and are colour matched to the popular "Colourbond" range of roofing and fencing materials. Some of the designs are incredibly modern and stylish.

In Victoria if you want a green garden, you need to use rainwayer or grey water. This shift in what people want has resulted in a shift in what is available, too, with most detergent and soap makers releasing greener phosphate-free products.

I will agree with the above post, though. That house is very ugly and undesirable.

Unless we are entering an iceage - which granted we may be - a house in Victoria, Australia is no not going to have the problem of the water icing, certainly not when the tank is internal to the house. For starters look at the insulation. It would cool the house in summer very nicely, but other than that it seems to take up a lot of room and doesn't mesh well with the architecture of the house. I am very interested to see where this leads however. I wonder if you could have some of the internal load bearing walls as water tanks? I know thats what this is attempting, but it just sits like a blob, there must be a better way of integrating tanks into the interior of the house.

Housticles?

Since #1 didn't bother to follow the link, I'll just quote from it.

During winter the tank is drained and wrapped in an insulating jacket. The tank also plays an important role in organizing the living area into four discrete zones: kitchen, living, eating and work.

As to the curvilinear v. rectilinear issue, contrast is an important element of design. If you paint your whole house red, nobody notices. If you paint just the door red, everybody comments on how red your door is. Having the cistern as the only round element turns it into a feature.

And I think that the house is lovely.

#9, I agree. I consider it a lovely, unique, and thoughtful home.

Wow, I hope the shower door isn't clear glass as well. It would just leave nothing to your imagination.

Well, as #9 Antinous said, "if you bother to look at the link", you'd notice that bedroom and bathrooms are in a separate, more private part of the house. Also, my first reaction was that the central water tank was a little ugly, but after looking at all the photos, and the plan, and the site of the house, it works. I'd live there.

Palindromic, a rainwater tank in Victoria, Australia is NOT going to ice up. Furthermore, Victoria, as in many parts of Australia, is currently in the grip of a years-long drought and rainwater tanks are a fact of life. It might not be the prettiest thing in the world but it's a good idea and one we Australians have already begun getting used to.

Further to what I said in my previous comment - so many buildings are lazily designed, just build a sweatbox and stick a big air conditioner on top of it. If more buildings incorporated design such as this, think amount of coal we wouldn't have to burn just to keep ourselves cool.

Although this house would be out of place in many locations, in the coastal environment of Cape Schanck, I think it's perfectly suited.

I'm tempted to go for a drive next week and see if I can find it myself.

Although I do see how this could be useful for keeping the house cool in the early parts of the day, I fail to see how it would do *anything* for insulation on an extremely hot summer day.

Think of what happens to a swimming pool with a solar blanket on top of it. Now put your house underneath that pool. Ouch!

Also, keep this away from rednecks. Although humorous, I certainly wouldn't want to see the effects of an errant bullet striking the ceiling!

It's like an atrium, the waaterbassin in the middle of villa's in Ancient Rome.. Anyway really cool!

I used to live in a historical hood where some of the larger homes had cisterns. The water was used for the gardens. I don't want water above me or around me, because in my experience, water always finds a way out, as in leaks out.

Ugly or not...drought or not...it makes so much sense to build smarter houses. And maybe that doesn't mean that your fridge can order milk via the webs...which seems to be the mother of invention for some tech-types.

I have really enjoyed the last 2 years in Australia...there has been a lot of buzz, creativity and participation, due to circumstances that people had very little control over...mainly the drought (now floods).

People would handle their consumption very differently if they'd have a battery, a watertank and a gas bottle.

I don't think having a tank of water would really do much to cool the house down. Maybe a little? If it gets hot out, doesn't the water get warm too?

It's not that ugly. I find the functionality of it most interesting.

I'm going to echo a lot of the comments here, questioning how a big blob of water in the middle of your home is going to keep it cool. I see two possible explanations:

1. It's really just a big thermal mass. It gets cool overnight, and takes a long time to warm up during the day (ie, it can absorb a lot of house heat during the day).

2. Evaporative cooling. But given how the water is all stored in one location, and not spread out over the surface of the house, I don't see how this would work.

I think there might be a bit too much emphasis on the cooling aspect...

The main thing is to store water, and while you're at it make the most of it.

Water tanks used to be everywhere in Australian cities and towns, but have pretty much disappeared due to, well, fashion really and maybe some space problems and regulations.

Like any good fashion, they seem to be back.

I lived in Trinidad for a while and spent some time in Honduras - neither place had "city water" like the US. Let me tell you, when all your water comes in on the back of a truck or falls from the sky, you get really good at conserving water!

Older flat-roofed buildings in the US were built without roof drains. They would use the evaporation of the standing water to cool the building. They did have scuppers a few inches to a foot above the roof level to the weight of the water down. The unfortunate side effect was a constant battle against roof leaks.

Obviously this setup is for water conservation more than heating/cooling.

The ceiling in the bedroom looks like cheap plywood.

The ceiling in the bedroom looks like cheap plywood.

It is.

there's cheap plywood?

The ceiling in the bedroom looks like cheap plywood.

So they used a beautiful, natural, functional, economic material. And...?

Interesting, but useless for those of us in a cold climate (tank filled with ice wouldn't help at all during winter.)

"So they used a beautiful, natural, functional, economic material. And...?"

I'm not saying it's not natural, functional, OR economic. (Rah-rah for them for the innovative design.) Just that it looks like crap.

de gustibus

Have you priced plywood lately? It's anything but cheap. Even the lowest grade (intended for sheathing) is $25 a sheet. Mid-grade Birch or Oak start at $40 a sheet and go up from there. Compare to drywall, your standard ceiling material, at about $8 a sheet.

I'm not sure it looks like crap, too. It doesn't photograph well, but in person it might be pretty nice. An office I was in recently had one huge wall made of plywood and it was a pretty warm, pleasing effect compared to the other walls of drywall.

Have you priced plywood lately?

In the US, Katrina and related disasters hit areas that produce a lot of wood. Ply and OSB were rationed at the local builder's supply for a while. I wonder how much that has affected the price, and if it applies to Australia as well. Plus, that's stain grade ply on the ceiling. Just because it has knots doesn't make it crap grade.

I like the idea of having the cistern inside, it's a bit like a weird mutation of Frank Lloyd Wright's "prairie homes" with the hearth as the center.

But this house could've been better executed.

The idea is sound enough. An underground separate cistern, which could have water in it, and absorb the earths constant cool temperature, should have been connected to the upper cistern, to circulate the warmed water from the upper cistern in the day, to the cooler cistern below.

This would keep the water temperature cool and offer much more cooling during the day. If the nights are chilly....turn off the system a few hours before sunset...or as many hours as needed, to redistribute the heat from the water at night.