They did this by keeping the house on the hilltop, but to maintain its privacy, they had to place it within parts of the slope and when doing so the choice of the timber colour palette reflected very well with its natural environment and keeping the living room on the top floor, letting in as much natural light and giving the client a great view out into their site. The north west orientation of the front elevation, which is mainly a glazed façade, managed to stay within the boundaries of passivhaus principles, by maintaining its performance and limiting it from overheating during summer months. Also, as we mentioned in our group conclusion, this was one of the buildings with high fabric first metrics, as they had well thought out insulation. Also, the use of PV, coming from the sun, didn’t get in the way of the aesthetics because they blended it with a good choice of colour palette, making them hardly visible (RIBA, 2019).
Conclusion Overall, this is a subjective topic because as mentioned in the start of this report when giving out the questionnaires, participants were basing their responses on their opinion, and from collecting that primary research I gathered that one’s opinion may differ from the others.
What was interesting was how most of them didn’t think that a passivhaus building could be aesthetically appealing and when diving into the research on passivhaus, even though it has some limitations, as it reduces the sizes of buildings; making it uncomfortable or the client may not be able to achieve its desired shape, the material choice is restricted as you need to consider ways to protect the environment and with such high demand for insulation, sometimes the thickness of the wall is very noticeable. Despite this, I would still encourage other to think about sustainable designs because it has long-lasting benefits for both users and the environment because like I showed in the Larch House and Lark Rise case studies, a building that is sustainable, and follows factors like the passivhaus principles, and achieves fabric first, is still able to look aesthetically appealing, as long as the architect considers both elements of the sustainability and design criteria (like connecting it back to its context). From doing this investigation I can argue the from the first passivhaus building, so much has improved, showing that there are possibilities to achieving aesthetically appealing buildings.
Figure Eleven: Wall, Roof, Floor, Window and Door Insulation (Passivhaus Trust, 2017).
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