Null: Hafsa Burt's Climate-Resilient Small House Prototype in Jackson, California

In Jackson, California, architect Hafsa Burt and her firm hb+a Architects have completed Null, a small house conceived as a prototype for climate-resilient architecture. The project, part of Burt's Box Lab initiative launched in 2018, explores residential design in a changing climate for vulnerable communities. The house serves as the home for the manager of a 9-acre site and shares the plot with an existing building. Burt's team, with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Castro Valley, collaborated with the client to create a structure that follows a 'just-enough' philosophy in program, systems, materials, and spaces. The site is in Northern California, where median income is 70% lower than the state average, and is prone to wildfires and significant temperature swings. The building uses structural steel, insulated walls and ceilings, and upcycled drywall and exterior wood cladding from a nearby construction surplus. It operates without fossil fuels, relying on onsite solar power, and harvests rainwater in 2,500-gallon cisterns, with excess runoff to a reservoir. Systems are left exposed in a machine-like approach, and the design integrates environmental strategies from the start. The project aims to shift thinking about single-family housing and can be replicated in different areas and terrains.