Nitsche Arquitetos concept for the 3^rd International Architecture Competition offers flexible housing for Cherepovets.

In creating their design for the 3^rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, Nitsche Arquitetos Associados achieved a simple and yet synthetic and precise design by directly responding to the three fundamental principles the firm believes that sustainable architecture, or architecture itself, is all about:

Nitsche used passive solutions to address Cherepovets' (the competition location) extreme climate of low temperatures and great annual amplitude. To insure the house is adaptable to the change in temperatures between day and night hours and from season to season, the house's "skin" was conceptualised as an adaptable arrangement to provide a comfort range to its residents and to minimize the consumption of energy. In addition to the adaptable skin a geothermal heat system is included to heat and cool the house.

"The idea was to make a very simple house, synthetic, very precise and minimal and to make a point on the landscape," noted Lua Nitsche, who designed the concept with her architect brother and partner in their firm, Pedro Nitsche.

The climate also influenced the shape of the design. The house has only one story to help equalise the distribution of internal heat. It is more linear then square to take advantage of heat absorption on the south (sun) façade to the living rooms and bedrooms. This façade has a double and dynamic layer enclosement: a transparent glazing and an opaque insulated one. By moving them in different configurations, it is possible to improve the interior comfort from day to night, from summer to winter.

And the exterior horizontal volumes and colour were designed to enhance the nature of the lakeshore landscape in Cherepovets. The firm saw that part of the challenge was to make a steel house look comfortable and psychologically acceptable for very cold weather. A variety of warm colours was chosen for the façades to contrast with the cold landscape. Multiple colours can be combined in order to make each house unique.

"We like to relate our design to the environment so we focused on the landscape and how the house will be seen in the landscape," said Ms. Nitsche. "Once you put a house in a place, you change the whole environment there, and we looked at minimising that impact."

The house has a modular and rational structural design. Nitsche adopted an economic module of 7.50 x 7.50m, which can be easily combined in different positions to obtain housing variations. The steel structure also works as an easy support to different types of cladding and enclosures, making possible multiple choices of façade materials and internal finishes. It offers a free plan to be organized and divided in many different ways according to owner's desires, allowing personalisation of the interior according to the owner's individual habits and ongoing lifestyle changes. In order to enhance ease-of-maintenance and to accomplish the desired layout flexibility there is a horizontal shaft underneath the house for equipment and installations.

The design takes advantage of having the Severstal steel plant nearby and uses as many steel components as possible. In doing so, the building process and assembly is faster and more economic than traditional construction. Close proximity also reduces transportation costs, always a serious factor in using sustainable materials, which in turn reduces CO2 emissions. And using locally manufactured materials benefits the local economy.

"Everything we saw, especially in Helsinki (during the competition presentations) inspires you to the possibilities of working in steel," said Mr. Nitsche. "It challenges your mind and it moves your brain to think about it. You don't know exactly how it works, but (designing in steel) changed us a lot because (the competition) was a very condensed learning situation. It changes the way you think and certainly I think more about steel than I used to."

Since the houses are not very large (the brief limits to 120m²) and requirements included a garage, Nitsche decided that this garage area should have multiple purposes, and it is therefore designed to be a greenhouse. In winter, during the day, when the car is out, it can be integrated to the living room, by opening sliding doors. In the summer, the garage becomes a permanent veranda.

Nitsche felt that the development area was best suited to use geothermal energy to supply heating and cooling through a ground source heat pump. This system consists of a circuit of buried cables that "captures" the natural soil heating and transfers it to the under-floor radiant heating ducts. The great advantage of this system is that it does not use any type of burning fuel, rather the vehicle is the air or water itself.

A radiant floor was chosen as the heating system for the Nitsche design because it operates at a lower temperature than other heating systems (2 or 3 C° less than boilers for example), and also because it gives flexibility to layout and internal distribution.

To improve its performance, the system could be interconnected to photovoltaic panels, which would provide renewable energy to the operation of the compressor and the pump. Combining one group of houses in the same system also reduces cost and energy consumption.

To learn more and see more images, view the summary brief.

View the architect's biography.

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