Latitude recognizes the radical potential of the single-family house to effect massive positive change: it can reduce emissions; it can generate economies; it can propagate sustainable living. The future house can and should be a catalyst for a much healthier planet. Latitude embraces this spirit by mobilizing the power of ecology to leverage the value of design, economy and community.

Latitude is designed for both now and an uncertain future in a rapidly changing world. It anticipates change in availability and cost of energy, water, and food. It is adaptable to changing climate and water levels, and adaptable to unpredictable social patterns. Indeed, Russia is changing. There is increasing demand for prosperity, choice, and opportunity for citizens; and, at the same time, there is a growing need for greater understanding of and support for sustainable practice. That these two desires are capable of mutual reinforcement is a fundamental principle of the Latitude project. Latitude proposes a sustainable strategy for generating more:

• more diverse and interconnected natural, social, and economic networks
• more energy-efficient building technologies with more resilience and adaptability
• more amenity for the health and vitality of humanity

Latitude is not one idea for an energy efficient house-- it is a set of constructs, strategies, and possibilities which will engender a desirable, sustainable community capable of changing and growing in response to socio-economic and environmental need.

Transform Industry for Regional Prosperity

Latitude proposes housing built using a component-based system that is designed to tie into and reinforce industrial ecologies already in action in Cherepovets and the Baltic-Volga Mega region. It is designed to propagate a regional sustainable housing industry and economy. The building components all use steel for their primary structure. Floor and roof panels are a composite system using a distributed lightweight honeycomb steel structure. Modular components are assembled in a factory environment, ensuring quality, envelope integrity and precise dimensional tolerances. Computer-controlled production minimizes waste, and component modules are easily transported and ready for rapid assembly. Factory production reduces overall costs, providing residents with the highest-quality housing available within budget targets.

Specialized factory assembly plants would fabricate building components through non-linear robotics-based assembly processes that can be flexible enough to accommodate interchangeable mass-customized components including highly insulated glass systems developed in association with the local glass industry, while wood is used strategically for finishes in support of the development of a sustainable forestry industry.

Design for Resilience and Adaptability

Latitude is a system of highly engineered modular units that perform quadruple-duty as an energy efficient building envelope, integrated structural system, space defining elements and infrastructural chassis for building services such as power, data, water, waste and HVAC. Its modular building components are:

• Structurally Integrated Service Modules that combine structure with storage, stairs, washrooms, kitchens and services. These are the primary structural and space-defining elements of the houses. There are four standard widths: 200cm, 100cm, 65cm & 35cm
• The ground floor and roof are comprised of tri-layer composite insulated panels that combine a two-way distributed steel structure with high efficiency exterior insulation. A third layer is made of up cementitious material with integral hydronic heating (floor) or a skin of phase-change plaster (ceiling). Roof panels alternate between flat roof modules and roof modules with integrated skylights and solar chimneys.
• The wall panel system is comprised of a series of highly insulated steel sandwich panels, high efficiency glazing panels of varying transparency and operable louver panels that modulate solar gain and shading for passive cooling in summer and passive heating in winter.

High Performance and Low Energy

Latitude makes extensive use of passive design strategies to reduce overall energy costs while maximizing natural light in the buildings. Glazing is strategically situated, and the majority of the house types are intentionally narrow in the north/south dimension to optimize daylighting. A system of louvers, trellises, plantings and other exterior elements shelters the building, creates microclimates, and extends the domestic space outward to embrace the landscape and invite more use of the exterior space.

Latitude's various types are designed to aggregate into townhouse or duplex configurations, further reducing surface area and therefore increasing energy efficiency. The building envelope is constructed of highly insulated (R-60) prefabricated panels, along with highly efficient transparent panels with integral shading systems to mediate the climate extremes of Cherepovets.

Glazed panels are made from a composite glass/ceramic double-skin vacuum glazed system, now in development, which yields an insulation value of R-12 while maintaining a high solar heat gain coefficient. A system of operable louvers is placed outside the glass to provide shading in hot weather. The louvers are integrated with 8mm of vacuum sealed insulation so that when closed on cold winter nights or during the hot summer days, they act as a blanket, helping to insulate the house. On the inside, heavy felt curtains can be drawn to further assist in night-time heat loss prevention. Operable windows located at high and low points on the glass walls and solar chimneys allow for maximum cross ventilation in temperate weather. Heat recovery is integrated with the ventilation system as well as the plumbing in order to further reduce usage.

The use of a prefabricated system maximizes precision and air tightness in the high performance construction, radically improving the energy use profile of the building, while simultaneously reducing the amount of energy used in the process of construction. Preliminary energy modeling is showing that our prototype homes are running at less than 40kWh/a/m2 for heating and cooling and 75kWh/a/m2 total energy use. Artificial lighting is mostly metal halide, and hot water will be provided through solar heating with an on-demand electric back-up. The non-heating and cooling energy use can be brought under 4500 kWh/a for a family of three, including responsible use of computers, home entertainment systems, and household appliances to existing low-energy specifications.

Encourage Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyles.

Latitude encourages a connection to the rhythms of the natural world by allowing the houses to be flooded by light and by extending the living space of the house to the exterior. A series of decks extend the living space in good weather (anticipating the tempering of the climate) while providing white reflective surfaces in the winter for increased solar gain with low sun angles. The site is planned for raised-bed agricultural use in the growing season and for skating rinks and other recreational uses in the winter. Fruit-producing trees will also provide shade.

These agricultural and energy strategies are directly intended to buffer the uncertainty of future energy and food supplies. On-site renewable energy generation would additionally contribute to the community's sustainability. Anticipating climate change for this low-lying site, near the reservoir, the houses are raised in order to protect against potential flooding caused by unstable weather patterns, as well as to maximize the site area available for retention of rainwater. The interior of the house also supports healthy lifestyles by providing good daylighting, low energy and low water use appliances and fixtures, significant views to the exterior, multiple opportunities for natural ventilation, and optional components such as greenhouses, extended pantries and exterior storage.

Mobilize the Power of Community

Latitude is designed for maximum benefi t when built out to form a community. With agglomerations of dwellings the resilience and flexibility of Latitude's building components becomes extremely efficient, as do sustainable energy systems, waste management, and agricultural operations. All of the five types can be developed as duplexes, increasing site and energy efficiency, and Courtyard House and Green House can be arranged as row housing. This makes sustainable density targets of 30 units per hectare achievable, while still providing a high level of amenity and privacy.

Not only will this system allow the house configurations to be closely matched to the needs of the inhabitants, it will also allow parts of the building to be changed in the light of new technological development, new climatic or socio-economic challenges, or changed familial structures. Social evolution is real and rapid, and supporting future lifestyles is healthy for humanity, and necessary for the longevity of buildings and cities.

Latitude's modular system will also allow the houses to grow if required, or simply to be updated in response to owner desire and evolving need. Modules can be exchanged and updated at the factory, and the use of steel as the primary building material allows returned modules to be easily recycled, allowing a cradle-to-cradle material cycle.