ould you build a house with water?
Hungarian architect Matyas Gutai believes that water is the perfect material for keeping a house at a comfortable temperature.
And while that doesn't mean that he can do away with traditional materials like bricks, cement, and plaster, his system promotes a whole new idea of engineering.
Gutai built a prototype house in his hometown of Kecskemet, south of Budapest, with his high school friend Milan Berenyi, after years of research and development.
The house was built with a grant from the EU, and showcases the "liquid engineering" concepts Gutai has written about extensively.
How does it work?
Panels, some of steel, and some of glass, make up the structure of the house and a sheet of water is trapped between the inner layers, which equalizes the temperature across the building.
The house is actually able to reheat itself, when its hot excess heat is stored either in the foundations of the building or in external storage, to be brought back to the walls when the temperature drops.
The indoor temperature can also be modified using a monitoring system similar to central heating.
This is a very efficient and sustainable system: the house can produce its own energy and be more independent of energy suppliers, which could reduce carbon emissions.
"Our panel can heat and cool the building itself -- the water inside the panel does the very same job as heating," says Gutai.
"It saves energy, when you compare it to a similar building with large glass surfaces -- it's a very clean and sustainable solution."
The initial idea
While studying sustainable architecture at the University of Tokyo, in 2003, Gutai got the idea for his water house from a visit to the open air hot baths.
Despite the snowfall outside the pool, Gutai remained comfortably warm inside it -- it was then he realized the importance of water's surface temperature and its potential use in architecture.
"As an architect I think it's really important that this building tries to redefine permanence, which has been a key concept in architecture for thousands of years. Our approach to permanence hasn't changed much at all, but now instead of making something very strong that tries to resist everything, we are making something that adapts to its environment.
"Architecture is really changing in our time. We've reached our limits when it comes to solid architecture, now it's reasonable to look for a new system."
