Passivhaus Passivhaus standards, one of the factors which comes under sustainability, when a building is designed with energy efficient standards, which helps it maintain temperature consistently. These buildings which have been approved to have followed the passivhaus standards are known to be well constructed, insulated and ventilated as they retain the suns heat, requiring less energy for heating and cooling the building, than usual. The first passivhaus building in DarmstadtKranichstein, Germany in 1991 by architect Dr Wolfgang Feist. The building designed had small heating energy demand, using only existing internal heat sources, the solar energy entering through the windows, as well as the minimal heating of incoming fresh air (Passivhaus Trust, N.D; IPHA, 2018).
Figure Four: First passivhaus in Darmstadt-Kranichstein, in Germany (Feist, 2020).
Figure five displays the influence of window size and glazing quality. For example, a triple glazed window with 38m2 glazing size would require 2800kW, whereas the same size but using triple pane low e glazing requires 2100kW. Showing that triple pane low e glazing is more sustainable. Nevertheless, looking at the Darmstadt-Kranichstein building, the placement of the windows hasn’t taken the design criteria into consideration, as aesthetics don’t look very appealing because they don’t standout and aren’t really a statement (Feist, 2020).
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Figure Five: Influence of window size and glazing quality (Feist, 2020).
Part of the passivhaus standards, they also had solar panels, ventilation heat recovery, airtightness and alongside other passivhaus principles, (Shown in Figure six). The building didn’t cover all aspects of sustainability and the design criteria, failing the aesthetics of this building. For example, embodied carbon must have released co2 emissions into the air as the materials used for this building were manufactured individually from elsewhere, making it very uneconomical, and affecting the environment. Nevertheless, the material choice wasn’t appealing, as it made it look very grainy and out of place. Maybe the use of natural sources, would have been a better alternative for both the aesthetics and environment (N.A, N.D). Regardless of Dr Feist achieving a passivhaus standard building, he discussed that some of the things that he would do differently, is move the pitched roof more to the south, allowing him to use the photovoltaic technology. He would go back and simplify the ventilation system, for heating and instead of heat pumps, use the certified passivhaus components as they have been improved and are 50% better (Feist, 2020).
