On the shores of the Colorado River, Bercy Chen’s Edgeland House is visible only as a narrow cut into the ground. Integrated into the slope of a rehabilitated brownfield, the house reimagines the single-family house typology, occupying a minimal footprint and tapping into local energy sources to supply its utilities.

Bercy Chen, the Belgian-Taiwanese architecture studio based in Austin, Texas, has a practice of learning from vernacular precedents; while their work reflects a contemporary design language, they make careful use of the organisational and constructive principles that made traditional buildings function in their context. In the case of the Edgeland House, the studio has reinterpreted the Native American pit house, one of the oldest North American housing typologies.

Like the traditional pit house, the Edgeland House is sunk two metres into the ground, achieving a comfortable thermal stability by using the earth’s thermal mass. The design also includes an insulating green roof and hydronic heating to maximise energy efficiency. The architects also collaborated with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to bring 40 lost native plant species back to the site, supporting the local ecosystem.