When we purchased our home, two things drew us to the property: its north-facing backyard and a beautiful, established jacaranda tree in the backyard.

As an architect, I understood the benefits of a northern aspect and the opportunity it presented to design a home that responds naturally to the changing seasons. But having now lived in our home for a full year, experiencing those benefits firsthand has been an absolute delight.

Our living room faces north, with a carefully designed eave above the windows and doors. Its depth has been calculated to respond to the changing angle of the sun throughout the year, allowing sunlight into our home when we need it and keeping it out when we don’t.

During summer, when the sun is high in the sky, the eave completely shades our living spaces from direct sunlight, helping to keep the house cool through the warmer months.

As summer gently gives way to autumn, the sun begins to sit lower in the sky. Gradually, sunlight starts to find its way beneath the eave and into our living room, reaching a little further inside as the weeks pass.

By the shortest day of the year, the winter sun stretches deep into our living and dining spaces, bathing the brick walls and floors in beautiful, warm light. It’s a wonderful place to be on a cold winter’s day.

Then, as winter turns to spring, the process slowly reverses. The sunlight gradually retreats towards the windows until, by summer, it’s completely shaded from the interior once again.

It’s a beautifully simple principle, but watching it unfold throughout the year feels almost like magic.

I’ve always incorporated passive solar design principles into my architectural work wherever site conditions allow. But experiencing the changing light and warmth in our own home has given me an entirely new appreciation for just how much these decisions contribute to everyday living.

It’s one of the things I love most about our home, and having experienced it, I would find it difficult to design any other way.