Build as if there were no air conditioning

“Build as if you had only the sun to warm and the breezes to cool. Entice yourself outside with great outdoor rooms to condition yourself to the local environment so you can throw the windows open most days. On the most extreme days, use small but highly efficient cooling equipment,” advises architect Steve Mouzon. The quote comes from Mouzon's book A Living Tradition, Architecture of the Bahamas—the second edition was published in 2018.

The photos above show how this concept applies to a 1.7-acre cottage development, a new extension of the Village of Cheshire in Black Mountain, North Carolina—near Asheville.