Favourites
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Digg
Delicious
Passivhaus
Saving energy by design
Architype designs buildings to simply use less energy. Rather than relying on expensive and often inefficient “techno-fixes”, we make the architecture itself do all the hard work to save energy. At Architype we are critical of current zero-carbon targets as they often allow poorly designed buildings to consume too much energy and offset with expensive on-site renewable generation.
We have adopted Passivhaus as the energy target for our current projects. Passivhaus is the most rigorous international energy standard. It uses sound building physics to reduce energy consumption by design, and enables simple, robust and long lasting buildings. This provides cost savings from day one, and throughout the life of the building.
Using Passivhaus enables us to optimise the design of our buildings to achieve a specific thermal energy target of 15kWh/sqm/year – around 80% less than current building regulations. This achieves optimum building comfort with minimal energy requirement.
Passivhaus standards were developed in Germany over 20 years ago, and have been tried and tested in the design and construction of 20,000 buildings in northern Europe; it is still relatively new in the UK. To achieve Passivhaus, building form and orientation are critical. These are combined with high levels of insulation, elimination of thermal bridges and high levels of airtighness in the construction.
Constant fresh air is provided in winter without losing heat and wasting energy by using mechanical heat recovery ventilation. In summer natural ventilation and night cooling maintain a comfortable internal environment without any need for energy intensive artificial cooling. By designing out unnecessary complexity and keeping detailing simple and elegant, we aim to Passivhaus standards at no extra capital cost. This realises running costs savings from
day one.
day one.
Architype is a founder member of the Passivhaus Trust, see link below. We are pioneering the adoption of Passivhaus in the UK with two Passivhaus schools in Wolverhampton and one in Leeds, a playcentre, a library, an office and a number of houses.
For our blog report from the passivhaus conference, see link below.
