Wheelhaus
By VIA architecture
Located on the hills overlooking Whitby, New Zealand, the Wheelhaus is a certified Passive House by VIA architecture.
The four-bedroom home sits on a long section, with its narrowest boundary to the north. This required careful consideration of form and window placement, to maximise daylight and take advantage of the site's stunning northerly views. These design goals are achieved through dynamic facade angles, which also reflect the contours of the Whitby landscape.
Evoking a rocky outcrop on the hillside, the house uses a light grey exterior cladding, UltraClad by Ullrich Aluminium. Interior finishes, in natural colours and materials, include timber flooring and timber-alu joinery. Large sliding doors connect the living space with a generous covered deck area, continuing the home's visual and physical connections to its surroundings.
A certified Passive House, the home achieves ultra high performance in terms of comfort and energy efficiency, as shown by the results below:
- Treated Floor Area: 187 m2
- Heating Demand: 12 kWh/m2a (2,244 kWh of heating energy required per year)
- Heating Load: 11 W/m2 (2 kW heater required for the coldest day)
- Airtightness Test: 0.36/h (blower door test result of 0.36 air changes under 50Pa pressure per hour).
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Wheelhaus
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Wheelhaus
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About the
Professional
VIA architecture is a specialist Passive House architecture and consulting practice formed by Elrond Burrell.
We believe in transforming your quality of life, via architecture.
We do two things:
- Design high-performance homes. Think “Porsche” for houses. Beautiful, modern, world-class comfort, world class energy efficiency. The best technology under the hood.
- Support other architects designing high-performance architecture. Not every architect has the specialist knowledge and expertise needed to deliver high-performance design. We’re the specialists, we bring it to them.
We use the international Passive House (Passivhaus) standard and design methodology to design high-performance architecture. We transform your quality of life by designing a home that provides optimum living conditions with minimal energy costs.
Most NZ houses, even expensive high-end award-winning houses, have poor-quality indoor air, are cold and draughty in winter and too hot in summer. You pay for a Porsche but only get the performance of a typical runabout.
For your health and quality of life, your home should have excellent indoor air quality, should be draught-free, and should be pleasantly warm in winter and pleasantly cool in summer. And it should cost next to nothing to keep it that way.
A high-performance Passive House home ensures you get the satisfaction of enjoying the best quality of life.
We are based on the Kapiti Coast, Wellington and Wanaka and work nationally. Please give use a call or email to see if we're a good fit for you and your project.
VIA architecture is a Practice member of the NZIA, a Silver Member of PHINZ, a design partner of Lifemark, and a member of NZGBC
- Year founded2016
- ArchiPro Member since2017
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