Scottish house targets Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5
Jewitt Arschavir & Wilkie Architects have just completed ‘Aurora House,’ a prototype for an affordable 4 bedroom house with predicted annual carbon emissions of zero (SAP 2005). The brief from client Dawn Homes was for the house to meet Code Level 5 with established technologies. The house, which officially opened last week, is located in the grounds of South Lanarkshire College and will be used for teaching and demonstration purposes.
External walls are rendered insulation boarding with a larch rainscreen. The air tightness test achieved 2.1 m3/hr@ 10 Pa.
Energy consumption, temperature, humidity and air quality will be monitored by Glasgow Caledonian University. Initial readings indicate that the house will make a net positive contribution to the grid.
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Filed under: Eco-projects
I wonder what it’s made from, how they deal with indoor humidity, VOCs, biodiversity etc etc.
Please excuse me while I mop up my vomit, too. Is it just me or is this an UGLY house? CSH, oh fickle maiden that you are, doesn’t seem to have provision for beauty.
Is it better to have a well-performing ugly house, or a poorly performing beautiful house. Discuss.
I don’t think good performing and beautiful houses should be a mutually exclusive concept, as architects it should be our aim to achieve both these goals.
Whilst I won’t be offering to rub Sam’s back every time he see’s an “ugly” house, I do agree with him: this is not beautiful. Having said that, I would refer any readers to JAW’s website to see their original designs, it is indeed very different to the above which has been finished off with the clients corporate colours.
I wonder if this could be volume produced as a “beautiful” and affordable house, given that that was the original intention? Or indeed, is there a market for this?