A Wooden House Powered by the Sun A Wooden House Powered by the Sun
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A Wooden House Powered by the Sun

Passive Architecture
Zygmunt Borawski
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time 8 minutes

Ola and Przemek have a home that is powered only by the sun. They breathe clean air, don’t have to worry about mold, and their energy bills are ridiculously low. This is their story, as told from within the house they had built themselves.

We had an apartment in a building. I had been a bank manager for many years; Przemek had a motorcycle garage, he was previously in the military. Later, I enrolled in cultural studies and took a position as a preschool teacher. We dreamed of having a house. And so we started looking for land. Twice we could have bought a bad plot, but my dad saved us the first time, and my mum, a forester, prevented the second. They noticed something sketchy, and each time they were right. In fact, none of this would’ve been possible if not for my parents. They also contributed to the investment. As luck

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Scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”
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Interior Design in Space Stations
Zygmunt Borawski

Every internet user probably knows the videos shot at the International Space Station (ISS) by Chris Hadfield. Thanks to them, we have seen everyday life in space – what the inhabitants of the station eat, what they do in their spare time, how they take baths, and even how they brush their teeth. Meanwhile, an interior designer watches it and cries…

How a director sees it…

It’s hard not to notice the dissonance between real space images and our notions of living up there. Ever since the first films about conquering the universe, directors have presented us more and more daring visions of space stations and interplanetary spaceships. The most emblematic examples are in the Star Wars saga and Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. On screen, we always see sterile, clean interiors, and perfectly designed forms.

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