New Energy-Efficient Home - New Hampshire
Scope of Work: Create a new energy-efficient home that takes maximum advantage of the scenery and gains passive solar energy and convection cooling.
The design concept for this New Hampshire residence is an interpretation of traditional farm building components and shapes, arranged to take advantage of the sites, views, and climatic conditions. In addition, sustainable building practices play an important role in the design of the house. Some of these include 2 x 8 stud walls with high-performance insulation, high-efficiency windows, a whole-house air ventilation system, and solar hot water heating panels installed on the garage roof. Green material selections in the interior of the house include low-VOC paints, renewable bamboo and linoleum flooring, and stainless steel and butcher block counters. On the exterior, the house has low maintenance corrugated steel siding and metal roofing.
The long axis of the house runs parallel to the east-west axis to take advantage of passive solar heating and large windows for natural day lighting. The tower serves as a passive solar cooling device in the summer. As warm air rises during the day the operable second floor windows allow the heat to escape, which draws the cooler night air through the first floor windows and keeps the air moving. Central air conditioning is not needed.
