“Of course it’s ideal if a house faces south, but if there’s a reason such as this one, which is where you have fantastic views to the west and also very close neighbours to the south that we didn’t want to be overlooking, then it’s worth doing,” he says. Fenestration is carefully arranged along the west elevation to maximize the views, whereas the east and north elevations have small windows to reduce heat loss and to avoid overlooking adjacent houses. The garden to the west has been raised by 400mm above internal floor level to allow full views of the landscape while eating and sitting outside. The southern side of the house has large windows at ground floor level, opening onto a large paved terrace area. If you were wondering about what look like very randomly placed small windows at the first floor level, they are intended to “offset the formality of the facade, and are inspired by the vernacular openings in dovecotes”. The windows are set at high level to avoid overlooking neighbours. Inside, the ground floor layout is designed around two living areas separated by a hallway and staircase and a utility room. There are no doors except for the bathroom and utility rooms. The four bedrooms have distinct characters and all but the guest room (which has an attic with storage and plant above it) take advantage of the roof form by opening up to the internal apex of the roof to create a feeling of space in a relatively tight floor plan. The two bathrooms, placed on the east side of the building, where the requirement for small windows fits neatly with the principle of reducing easterly glazing to prevent heat loss, also open up into the roof pitch. According to Gresford, one of the keys to keeping the costs down on this six-month build was the pre-fabricated timber frame, which was produced by Irish passive house industry stalwarts MBC Timber Frame and erected in just two weeks. “That takes a huge amount of money out of the equation in terms of the overall build time,” he says. Ideally MBC would have also fitted the windows (from Ideal Combi’s Futura+i aluminium range) as well but they arrived too late to slot into their assigned build time. The house isn’t on mains gas, so a Worchester 12i LPG gas boiler provides the space and hot water heating, while a Paul Novus 300 MVHR heat recovery system handles the ventilation side. The motorised external blinds are courtesy of Irish passive house firm Young Design Build and are critical for preventing overheating in the summer. Gresford says the savings in cost and time achieved by things like the pre-fabricated timber frame “generally outweigh any extra costs for things such as the MVHR or external shading”, while triple-glazed windows are no more expensive than double-glazed. “We went with MBC [Timber Frame] because they basically deliver a guarantee. They guarantee the airtightness, the U-values and the thermal bridge-free design. So those are three very important parts of delivering a passive house.”
“It’s not a boring box, it’s got elements of style that are interesting without being ostentatious.”