Y-House
From Pasture to Architecture - Kirazlıyayla, Denizli (Under Construction)

Location — Çameli, Denizli, Türkiye
Year — 2025–2026
Status — Under Construction
Type — Residential
Area — 200 m²
Structure — Timber Frame
Materials — Local Stone, Timber Frame, Sheep Wool Insulation, Natural Slate Roof(Ardoise), Lime Plaster, Clay Panel
Landscape — Native Planting, Productive Landscape

Ecological Focus — Bio-based Materials & Passive Design

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Located in the highland landscape of Kirazlıyayla, Denizli, Y House is a 200 m² timber dwelling that explores how local pastoral resources and vernacular building knowledge can inform contemporary ecological architecture. The project begins with a material that has become increasingly undervalued within regional pastoral economies: sheep wool. Locally sourced wool is washed, treated and used as the principal insulation material within the timber-frame walls and roof. Rather than approaching wool simply as an alternative insulation product, the project considers it as part of a wider territorial cycle connecting pasture, livestock, local knowledge, material and architecture.

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The architectural language draws from the material character of the rural highlands, where timber and stone have historically formed a direct relationship between buildings and their landscape. Rather than reproducing vernacular forms, Y House reinterprets these principles through a contemporary timber structure, locally sourced stone, natural slate roofing and vapour-open wall assemblies. The building envelope is conceived as a breathable, low-tech construction system. Sheep wool insulation is combined with timber construction, timber laths and lime-based plaster, allowing hygroscopic materials to regulate moisture while reducing dependence on petrochemical insulation products. The exposed material palette is deliberately limited, allowing the construction itself to define the architectural expression.

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Deep timber pergolas extend the interior spaces into sheltered semi-open living areas, responding to the seasonal conditions of the highland climate. These transitional spaces mediate between the house and its landscape while providing solar protection and outdoor living areas. Landscape and water systems are treated as extensions of the architecture. An ecosystem garden around the existing cypress tree establishes a biodiverse entrance landscape, while a planted greywater treatment area on the northern side of the house is designed to filter household greywater through reed-based vegetation before its reuse for landscape irrigation. Underfloor heating provides low-temperature radiant heating, complementing the highly insulated timber envelope and the thermal buffering capacity of the building's mineral interior finishes.

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Y House therefore approaches sustainability not as the accumulation of technological systems, but through material sufficiency, climatic response and territorial resources. By bringing locally available sheep wool from the pastoral landscape into the building envelope, the project investigates how a material often treated as agricultural waste can become an architectural resource.

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Pasture → Wool → Craft → Envelope → Architecture

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In this sense, Y House is conceived not simply as an ecological dwelling, but as a prototype for a contemporary pastoral architecture—one in which the environmental performance of the building is inseparable from the landscape, animals, materials and knowledge systems from which it emerges.