Earlier last month, the annual event Sustainable House day was held where Australia wide, over 200 environmentally friendly homes opened their doors to the public. Dalecki Design had the privilege of being involved in the day, being able to offer insights into the design principles and features behind the ‘Beaconsfield Beach House’, one of the many homes being showcased. The strong numbers and positive response to both Sustainable House Day and the ‘Beach House’ was hugely encouraging, showing that the demand for sustainable, smarter, passive solar houses in Australia is on the rise.

Located on a compact nine and a half metre wide, 250 square metre parcel of land sits this smart and compact, yet spacious house. The home was custom designed to suit the client’s individual needs, whilst still offering the flexibility for household growth and changing needs. Designed initially as a two bedroom two bathroom, the home also offers the flexibility of the second floor sitting area being easily converted into a third bedroom.

The parcel of land is ideal to house a passive solar design. The elongated side of the property faces due north and there is no overshadowing from adjoining properties, thanks to its street corner location. This elongated northern face gives the ability to design the home so every room has exposure to the warming winter sun, providing natural heating. This heat from the sun is stored in the thermal mass of both the well-insulated suspended second floor and ground floor slabs. This stored heat then radiates out when the internal air temperature drops, maintaining a stable and comfortable internal air temperature without any auxiliary heating.

Preventing heat gain in summer is dealt with through smart external shading including roof eave line shading, individual window awnings and a large outdoor patio to support deciduous vines, which provides summer shading, yet still allows winter sun to enter the house. This combined with well-insulated R10 ground floor walls, R8 upper floor walls, R6 ceiling insulation and double glazing ensures summer heat gain is totally minimised. The thermal mass floor slabs that naturally heat the house in winter work in reverse during the summer months, providing a cooler internal air temperature. In summer, nighttime ventilation removes heat that has been built up during day, which serves to cool the structure for the next day.

Windows are well positioned on the south west side of the house to capture cooling breezes, which then flow through and exit through carefully positioned windows on the opposite side of the house. Each habitable space of the house has windows positioned to ensure direct cross flow ventilation can take place with minimal obstructions (this essentially means well positioned windows on both sides of the room).

To talk about this project in further detail, or to find out how we can help you design your own passive solar home, feel free to contact us at Dalecki Design.

What's the difference between green design, passive design and sustainable design… and why does it matter?

Head over to Houzz and read our latest article to find out.

(CLICK HERE TO READ MORE)

Project by Zero Energy Design 

When we build, naturally, the vast majority of people only consider their own requirements and needs. However, it's important to remember that your home, whilst it may seem small in the grand scheme of things, has a large impact on the surrounding environment and community over its life cycle. In today's world of increased population, increased pollution, increased strain on the existing infrastructure and dwindling natural resources, it is more important than ever to consider how you can minimise your impact on the environment. Your home design is a great place to start! 

Passive designed house by ARCHTERRA ARCHITECTS  

What is passive design?

‘Passive design’ is design that takes advantage of the climate to maintain a comfortable temperature range in the home. A well designed building helps minimise any unwanted heat gain and loss, therefore reducing the homes energy usage.

Why should you include passive design principles?

Basic passive design principles can be easily incorporated in to your home design for no extra cost, but can reduce, or even eliminate the need for auxiliary heating or cooling, which accounts for approximately 40% of energy use in the average Australian home. The immediate energy cost savings you will notice in a passive designed home is an added advantage to considering the future of our environment.

With good design and up front planning, these basic passive design principles can be easily incorporated into any new home without adding any additional costs on top of your standard build. Substantial renovations to an existing home also offer a fantastic, cost effective opportunity to upgrade thermal comfort, with even smallest of upgrades providing significant improvements. 

Passive designed home extension by architect GUILD ARCHITECTS

Where to start?

What should you look for when selecting a block of land or an established house? Where do you begin with a passive solar design? The first thing you need to be aware of is the location but in more specific detail, the orientation. Ideally you want the building (existing or new) to be elongated on an east-west axis exposing the building so the north face as much as possible. Therefore, if you are looking for a vacant block, ideally it should be elongated on this axis.

The buildings north face openings should be exposed to sunlight as much as possible during the day heating period (time the sun is up) during the winter months. Keeping this in mind, extra consideration will also need to be given to the pre existing surrounding built environment. For example, if a ten storey apartment building is on the north side of your block, the opportunity of you obtaining this north exposure is going to be much less in comparison to a corner block with no obstructions to the north face and so extra design consideration needs to be given to the location of openings. During the winter months, the sun is at a much lower angle, so even a small obstruction to the north face can be quite detrimental to the function and operation of the house. Along with the orientation of the block and the house within the block, you need to take into account the current and future surrounding built environment.

Passive designed house by STUDIO OAK  

If looking at an established home, you need to apply the same principles, with the majority of the building being exposed to the north orientation. However, when referring to ‘building’, this is not referencing spaces liked your garage, your laundry, your bathroom or even your bedrooms. You want your main living spaces where you will spend a majority of the time during the day to be as exposed as possible to this north face. The reason is simple, because this is where you spend the majority of your time. The other zones like your garage and your laundry are utility zones which you spend considerably less time in, so heating is less important. Areas liked sleeping zones are good to have exposed to the north orientation, but come second to the living zones.

Once you have your block or established home that you wish to alter, where to next? Stay tuned for our next post, part two of solar passive design, where we delve into detail about how to include each particular solar passive design principle without any added construction cost.

Rapid population growth and a conscious effort to reduce urban sprawl have seen an increase in the infill of existing established areas, re development of existing homes and the creation of new smaller lot developments. In Perth alone, 29% of lots approved in 2013 were less than 320 square metres, a significant increase from 11% in 2009.

Narrow, small lot design by GREEN DOT ARCHITECTS 

Our busier lifestyles, smaller family sizes, urge to live closer to the city and growing demand for a low maintenance “lock-and-leave” home has further encouraged the rise in these smaller lots and therefore pushed us to re evaluate what we consider the ‘standard’ home design. For those willing to compromise on location, it is possible to move further out of the city and still find a lot size to suit your larger home dreams, however, for many individuals this is not realistic and we now must learn how to work with smaller lot sizes to create the house of our dreams. 

With the use of clever thinking and smart design, it is still possible to fit your dream home on to these lots, however, small sacrifices are required in less important areas. Naturally, on a smaller block, there is less room for wasted space, therefore making every square metre all the more valuable. Long corridors eating up precious space, single use rooms and large voids should no longer have a place in small lot design.

Study nook within second wing passageway design by DALECKI DESIGN

Swapping traditional rooms, such as a walk through laundry, for features such as a European style laundry hidden behind doors, ensures no space is wasted and every square meter serves a functional purpose. This small change can bring a saving as great as 10 square metres, as well as giving the single use passage space a second functional use.

Hidden Laundry design by STUDIO MCGEE

Multi functioning zones, turning a single use room into a dual use, is a great space saving measure. An area such as a dining room can easily be transformed into a study area with the smart inclusion of desk and storage in discrete areas. Effectively, the dining room can now be used as a study, without having any effect on its initial functioning purpose. 

Concealed study nook by MAREE HOMER

A living space that can be discretely closed off when privacy is required to create a private media room eliminates the need for a separate media/theatre room. Having this functionality also allows for the living space and media room to be opened up to create one large space when required for entertaining.

Additional living space, which can be hidden behind sliding doors designed by EAT ARCHITECTS

A kitchen design that incorporates a dining space is another way to create a multifunctioning zone. The level of inclusion or seperation between zones for any of the above options comes down to the overall building space and the requirements to fit within this building space.

Combined kitchen and dining by IQOSA

These smaller lots bring up new design challenges that require smart design solutions. In order to utilise every square meter of the block, items such as the side boundary parapet walls are common practice. This gives you less wasted space, reducing the unused dead space along the side of the house, in order to increase space in more frequently used areas, such as your outdoor entertaining and garden zone. However, these parapets do bring along their own challenges, making it difficult to allow natural light and ventilation into the home. It is also important to ensure that with parapet walls, a design is created whereby the owners do not feel blocked in by bricks walls in all directions.

Clever use of glazing by IBMV ARCHITECTS

It is important to remember that small lots by no means limit your possibilities- they open up a whole new world of design solutions!

When it comes to additions, remodels and the adaptive re-use of exiting structures, thinking outside the square is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Quite simply, abstract thinking is an essential component to the design process.

Former living room which now serves as the master bedroom featuring a restored fire place designed by DALECKI DESIGN

When working with these existing structures, it is a completely different style of design and requires a totally different train of through. Instead of starting with a clean slate like you would with a new build, you are required to work around what already sits on the site, trying to modify or extend it to suit the new needs of the owner.  It is therefore crucial to think outside the square when it comes to utilising the existing structure to its full potential, whether it be building up, building out, or remodelling internally. If not carefully planned and thought out, a simple project can quite easily turn into something bigger than Ben Hur. 

Third floor addition making the most of the normally wasted roof space designed by D’ARCY JONES ARCHITECTURE

With abstract thinking, not only can you end up with a more cost effective and suitable design, but it can result in some quirky design solutions that only an addition and renovation could offer. These solutions that couldn’t be designed into a new home build is what gives the overall design its own personality with its very own story. After all, the reason we are so in love with these character/older buildings is because each and every one has its own story to tell, so why not add another chapter?

This has been done beautifully in the home remodel by Arkee Creative. Aspects of the original, 100 year old character home were restored to their former beauty and repurposed in the new home design. For example, the new bathroom fit out was designed around the existing heritage fire place. This provides a beautiful point of difference in the home design, recalling the past life of the home and injecting a touch of history that a new home build couldn’t provide.

Remodel room with restored fireplace now serving as the bathroom designed by ARKEE CREATIVE