Linear House
By Architype
This recently certified passive house project was designed and built for a couple relocating to the Cambridge from Auckland. They wanted to build a comfortable, energy efficient house that would suit their needs as they aged.
The building is located on a corner section of a relatively busy street in central Cambridge. The site is a long narrow triangle which runs parallel to the road to the south. The district plan rules required a large setback from the road which meant that almost the entire site could not be built on as of right. Architype’s response was to locate the building parallel to the southern street boundary, partly within the street setback. This created a strong edge to the street and opened up space to the north for private outdoor living. By layering up the building and landscaping using strong horizontal elements the visual impact of the house on the street was minimized. The wide eaves also provide excellent shading from high summer sun and reduce the frequency of overheating. From a planning point of view the program for the house is relatively straight forward. The bottom level of the house contains the master bedroom and all spaces required for the couple’s day to day needs. The upper level contains 3 guest bedrooms for visiting family & friends.
This was Architype’s first passive house project in the North Island and given the relatively mild climate in the Waikato they wanted to try to stick to a simple recipe to achieve the PH standard. In most of Architype’s South Island projects, triple glazing and relatively complicated wall and floor constructions are required. Here they had the opportunity to keep things quite simple. After modelling various options, they found that they could achieve the PH standard with simple structural insulated wall panels, good quality European timber framed windows with double glazing, and a simple albeit carefully modelled insulated floor slab.
Due to the importance of building services, mechanical ventilation and airtightness in passive houses, the building was designed from the outset with the achieving high levels of airtightness and facilitate the distribution of building services. The layout, structure, services and aesthetics of the building work tightly together to create a simple yet extremely high performance building which requires little or no heating to maintain indoor temps of 20-25C all year round.
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Architype is an award winning architectural practice specialising in the design of high performance Passive House and low energy residential and community architecture.
OUR APPROACH
At Architype we believe that good design is worth the effort. We know that building is expensive and to us it just makes sense to put the effort in at the design stage to carefully think through the design and develop solutions which, once constructed, will provide a lifetime of delight for the building users.
We also know that, “delight” is more than just good space planning and elegant building form, it is also about the long term and comfort and energy efficiency of the building. At Architype our focus is on creating buildings which provide warm, healthy and affordable environments for building users.
Comfortable and low energy buildings can’t be created by bolting on solutions at the end of the design process. When understood properly these factors will influence almost every key decision in the design process.
WHAT WE DO DIFFERENTLY
At Architype, in addition to considering important traditional architectural issues like: context, views, town planning, entry, public and private space, circulation and orientation, we add additional design considerations to the mix. These include: favouring compact building forms, appropriate distribution and shading of windows, continuity in insulation, draught proof construction, thermal bridge free detailing and strategies for the simple distribution of ventilation ducting.
We believe that an understanding of building science and a passion for good design should go hand in hand.
Our projects employ a range of high performance building systems and components including high performance timber framing, various types of structural insulated panels, insulated concrete forms, uPVC windows, European timber windows and ventilation systems with heat recovery.
We love to work with clients who are informed and see the value in building better.
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING
With highly integrated design comes the need for powerful tools for the development and communication of projects. All our projects are modeled using Building Information Modelling software or BIM. Using this powerful software a virtual model of each project is created from which all of the drawings are derived. Change a door on one drawing and it changes in every drawing. As the project progresses from the initial concept design to detailed design, more and more information is added to the model creating a more and more complete reflection of the final building. We are able to export files to our clients who can explore the design in 3D on their own computer or tablet. More than ever before this has allowed our clients to visualise and understand their projects before any work begins on site. Not only has this improved communication but it also results in fewer changes on site.
We can also leverage the digital model to quickly create additional deliverables like sun studies, energy modelling, schedules and promotional material.
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