The R-house was designed to function as a small vacation retreat. It will be pre-fabricated in sections and assembled within a short period of time onto the customers site. The entire structure will be made of a new wood product called Accoya, which is made from sustainably grown trees, and preserved in a nontoxic way, which gives it a guaranteed 50 year life. Photovoltaic solar cells, and a small vertical axis wind turbine, will provide all of the electricity needed to power the house. As a result, the R-house will not be required to be connected to the conventional power grid. Rain water will be collected and stored at the center of the structure and used for washing. The toilet will be self contained with the use of either a composting toilet or with an electrical incinerating toilet. Domestic water will be heated by the sun, and/or propane gas, or by hydrogen gas, if a hydrogen gas production system is installed. The structure will be solar space heated with a backup propane or hydrogen gas heater and cooled through natural ventilation.

A large portion of the R-house living space is outside. A  shaded deck area will be located above the enclosed space, and a larger circular deck area will be located around the perimeter of most of the structure. This deck area will be partially covered with four large movable screens, which can easily be pulled around the perimeter of the circular deck into various configurations. Two of the screens will have benches built into their bases and a large table and seat will be built in around the perimeter of the center of the structure. The moveable screens can be used to enclose the space and/or to open the space in many different ways. They can also be used to shade some of the windows that are built into the enclosed space. All of the windows and one sliding glass door built into the enclosed space will be fitted with security shutters that can be slid into place to protect the glass when the structure is not being used.

The size of the entire structure can be increased by adding more of the segments around the perimeter of the center, column, and or by projecting off from the center column, and generating an entirely new configurations.