Experiments in 100% glass housing

As the insulation capabilities of commercial glass has increased the ability to cover more wall space with glass rather than traditional wall materials has become more viable.

Personally I have swung between extremes of trying to make shipping containers work as a great home design to now looking at commercial high rise glass as another alternative.

How about tempered or triple glazed energy efficient glass at $30 USD a metre?

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/6-38-12-38-mm-large_1783393681/showimage.html

Why not?

I have been experimenting with the idea of a completely enclosed living space with an air lock to capture energy loss and open window policy that only allows opening when the outside temperature is within 2 degrees + _ of the chosen internal temperature.

Internal greenhouse garden, humidity management and air circulation with heat exchange and ground water based cooling.



What is missing is light management

I was looking at moveable internal walls but settled on the idea of glass walls with electronic privacy... except for the prohibitive current cost it should come down shortly...

Cost $500-$1000 per metre square for smart glass http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1948949
http://www.iglassswitchable.com.au/
http://www.smarttint.com/
http://www.glass-apps.com/applications/electric-privacy-glass/

This link (see above) shows how a bathroom would use the technology.

Even for the roof?

Why not? If the glass is strong enough for bush fires and structural application then handling a falling tree or hail stones should be possible right?

Here are some other ideas that have popped up during my research:

• A global house wide privacy panic button for when unexpected visitors or intruders approach the house.
• Multiple power circuits where one circuit may be left on at all times, a second circuit can be shut off for long periods away from the house and another circuit that is turned off whenever you leave the house.... the idea is that the main switch is next to the house entryway and that power can be conserved wherever possible.
• Using Passive house design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house and combining it with internal gardening techniques (Karen is an avid gardener) means that we can have in side generated oxygen and humidity regulation
• There is a couple of house designs I looked at but haven't been able to re-find that are very interesting. 
• One used a big central house sized rock in the middle of two wings of a house as a heat sink to warm the house in winter and cool the house in summer... that looked very interesting. 
• The second used a pool of water and a garden in the sun facing side of the house as part of the air circulation and humidity control capabilities of the house... as I recall it sounded very similar to the passive house concept except with a garden integration thrown in...

Note: This design is not for urban applications but more so for rural or outback application where the dwelling is at least partially protected from the sun by surrounding land forms or forrest.