American studio Haus has created a countryside home that consists of interlocking boxes clad in ash, concrete and cement board and a large overhanging roof that shelters an Airstream trailer.
The Copperwood house ? named after the colour of the surrounding landscape ? is situated on a sloping 20-acre (eight-hectare) site in Zionsville, a town in central Indiana. It was designed for a family of four who wanted an energy-efficient and modern-style dwelling.

Only a small portion of the client's property was suitable for construction due to the presence of wetlands and an abandoned pipeline. The architects wanted to orient the home on an east-west axis for passive solar purposes, but the angled pipeline made that difficult.

"Ultimately the pipeline became a major driver of the design concept, resulting in an offset series of bars forming a bedroom wing, living wing, and garage wing ? each perpendicular to the other, forming a Z-layout," said Haus, a design studio based in Indianapolis. "Each component steps with the angle while maintaining the desired solar orientation and orthogonal relationships, which also happened to work perfectly for desired views and site access."

The rural home is accessed via an easement road that was formerly a rail line, and is fronted by a new gravel driveway that provides "the most complimentary approach". A wooden walkway leads to a recessed front door, which is sheltered by a deep roof overhang.

The upper portion...