Building a home that is energy efficient need not involve expensive technology and time-consuming strategies. Here’re 10 clever design solutions to manage your carbon footprint.
1. Fixed Sunscreen
Photograph: Courtesy saota.com
A slatted timber screen, like this one in The Cove House, by Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects, adds an interesting architectural element and also reduces the amount of direct sunlight without compromising on interior light quality.
2. Moveable Screen
Rendering done by Pietro Russo
The adjustable screen in this EM Fold model of Pietro Russo’s prefabricated Ecomo home allows its inhabitants to regulate the amount of both natural light and ventilation to suit the climate.
3. The Hover House
Photograph: Derek Rath
To avoid rising building costs and an over-consumption of building resources, Glen Irani Architects in California designed a series of houses that hover above the ground, thereby utilising vertical space by combining indoor and outdoor living functions.
4. Passive Solar Gain
Photograph: Koji Fujii
In the Daylight House, designed by Takeshi Hosaka Architects, 29 square skylights allow soft, diffused sunlight in to illuminate and warm the interior. Curved acrylic ceiling plates fitted into a timber grid create a thermal buffer between the outside and inside space, keeping the interior at a constant, comfortable temperature.
5. Roof Garden
Photograph: Elsa Young
Take a neglected space and make it useful. Roof gardens provide an interesting outdoor space to be enjoyed while supplementing natural vegetation. They reduce energy costs by providing natural insulation and collecting storm water, mostly eliminating the need for expensive climate-control and drainage systems.
6. Cross Ventilation
Photograph: Elsa Young
By positioning large doors or windows opposite one another, wind flow is able to force cool exterior air into one opening, while forcing warm interior air out the other, keeping warm-weather spaces cool.
7. Screen Garden
Photograph: Kevin Frankentel
Uplift a dreary space by installing one of Grow Collective’s custom-made vertical garden screens. The mossy surfaces grow without soil, providing an attractive and sustainable design solution, all the while improving indoor air quality and creating a calming and tranquil green area. These vertical gardens also have insulation benefits, keeping heat out in summer and retaining it in winter. With a range of plants in a variety of colours and textures to choose from, the screens artistically imitate nature in an interior.
8. Light Management
The Rosenheimer Solarhaus by Team Ikaros in Bavaria demonstrates a clever way to manage an interior’s exposure to light and heat. A geometric steel screen enveloping the structure limits the amount of light allowed into the space, creating a dappled light effect when the sun shines. In cooler weather, the screens can retract upwards (as a blind would), exposing maximum surface area to be warmed by the sun.
9. Insulating Corridor
Photograph: Benny Chan
Belzberg architects designed corridors on the exterior of this building to act as a thermal buffer, keeping internal rooms cool in the hot Californian climate. A corridor, open at either end, facilitates airflow past each room, while openings from each room draw on the cool moving air from the corridor through the length of the house.
10. Solar Power
Photograph: Jacob Termansen
In the Mod Cott home by Mell Lawrence Architects, 14 photovoltaic panels placed on a grid simultaneously provide power and create a four-metre overhanging porch supplying much-needed shade. Rainwater is collected into a tall cistern for all household use. Locally, JoJo water tanks offer a customised service to help households efficiently recycle grey water.
