A house for a comfortable retirement. This is a small house which is designed to be easy to live in and with a degree of future accessibility. While it has a small footprint, the wide hallway, tall living space and open plan give a feeling of space and light. The house is designed for the sun, with wide northern eaves providing shade from the summer heat, but sized to allow the low winter sun deep into the house, to help heat the polished concrete floors and provide thermal comfort. High levels of insulation to walls, floor, roof and windows mean this building requires very little energy to keep warm. Other features to lessen its environmental impact include collecting rain water for use both in and outside the house and the use of naturally-durable and non-chemically-treated timbers.