ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE

Siting

• Orientation to make the most of winter sun and avoid overheating in summer
• South facing glazing will provide heat in winter, which will be retained within the house due to the tightly sealed internal spaces.
• Moveable panels on each façade will be able to block out areas of direct sun, providing shading to the internal spaces in summer.
• Orientation to make the most of winter sun and avoid overheating in summe
• South facing glazing will provide heat in winter, which will be retained within the house due to the tightly sealed internal spaces
• Moveable panels on each façade will be able to block out areas of direct sun, providing shading to the internal spaces in summer.

The Structure

• Phase change materials
• Slab flooring
• High thermal mass

In use

In winter, a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery will ventilate the houses, allowing solar gain to be retained within the structure.

Hot water supply will be provided by solar water heating panels.

In addition, solar thermal panels connect to water built into your building fabric to provide hot water and also move heat across your thermal boundary where it can be used as background heating.

CHP

The wider scheme for the whole house incorporates the possibility of shared community energy creation, with deep thermal piles to ‘borrow' thermal mass from the ground.

• Design performance
• Floor U-value 0.23
• Walls U-value 0.1
• Roof U-value 0.1
• [U-values: watts per sq m per K]
• The walls are highly insulated, giving a high thermal performance.
• All windows and door will be triple glazed.
• Air tightness designed to able to achieve 5 cu m per sq m per h.

The amount of energy used in heating will be reduced significantly by the overall design of the building envelope, resulting in an overall consumption of 1817kWh/y, or 36kWh per sq m. This is significantly lower than the target of 100kWh.

• Floor U-value 0.23
• Walls U-value 0.1
• Roof U-value 0.1
• [U-values: watts per sq m per K]
• The walls are highly insulated, giving a high thermal performance.
• All windows and door will be triple glazed.
• Air tightness designed to able to achieve 5 cu m per sq m per h.

The amount of energy used in heating will be reduced significantly by the overall design of the building envelope, resulting in an overall consumption of 1817kWh/y, or 36kWh per sq m. This is significantly lower than the target of 100kWh.

FIT WITH THE SITE

Variation in the streetscene and landscape will be achieved through the placing of the houses and the relationship of the glazing to the landscape beyond.

The seasonal movement of the shading panels on each façade will create graphic punctuation and give the inhabitants a greater degree of creative control over their living environment. This also changes the pattern of light escaping from the homes at night, so no two houses will look externally identical.

ACCEPTANCE BY THE COMMUNITY

The low-lying houses fit within the forest landscape, punctuating the wide vistas and providing frames of glazing along the horizontal line of the land. Each house can be easily positioned to make the most of each particular site condition - e.g. directed towards the edge of a lake. Materiality and colours blend with the surroundings and at the same time create a welcome retreat within the wide landscape.

Mixing of house sizes and variation in plot density will reduce the feeling of repetition. Combining house sizes with a given area will add variety to the neighbourhoods, ensuring a mixed community and variation in the demographic of residents in each area.

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