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Housing - New Build: Passive house not exciting architecture?

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    Does passive house planning package generate architecture that is not spacially exciting?
    The treated floor area is reduced when you have double storey height spaces etc.
  2.  
    Well, the planning package doesn't generate architecture, people do that. And the planning package just encodes a model of physics. The physics of buildings and heat loss implies that if you want to reduce heat loss you should favour certain shapes etc.

    I think spatial excitement is rather overrated and I rather like the efficient forms found in current passive houses. But there's no accounting for taste.
  3.  
    You can have the same form / volume one option with upper floors the other without. Upper floors could meet passive house standards the other not. That's the point I'm making it kind of dilutes the aspiration for passive house standard when it's based on treated floor areas not volume?
    I like energy efficient architecture that lifts your spirits every day. the fusion of Science and art
  4.  
    The floor space is mostly used as a proxy for the occupancy.

    For example, the amount of airflow needed depends in reality mostly on the number of occupants: they produce the water vapour, C02 and odours: the building fabric doesn't for the most part and to the extent that it does it does so in a way that varies with the floor area, not with the wall area. Passivhaus is based (at least originally) on the idea of reducing the heat demand to the point that it can be met using the air supplied by the MHRV.

    To avoid creating a perverse incentive to over-ventilate (so that you can cheat and heat the building better using the extra air) you have to have a model that can tell you how much air flow is necessary for an arbitrary building. This depends in reality mostly on the occupancy. The occupancy can be estimated from the treated floor area.

    For example, if you increase the ceiling height by 50% you don't increase the air flow requirement by 50%. Arguably you hardly increase it all. And you increase leakage, so the amount of MHRV flow needed will actually fall. So if you're trying to heat that bigger exterior surface area and more extra leaked-in cold air with the same amount or less of postheated MHRV air, you're obviously going to need more insulation and/or better airtightness or heat-recovery measures.
  5.  
    I think it's fair to say that PH hasn't really developed a distinct architectural 'language' yet - most of the current crop are simply adapting ideas from existing styles (whether vernacular, eco-tech or bauhaus etc.) but replacing whitewash with insulated render and crittall windows with triple glazing etc. and that can occasionally lead to some unfortunate looking compromises.

    (Whether it should be a distinct style or simply a best practice standard applicable to any style is a matter of some debate - after all, we should be doing all this anyway and styles have an annoying habit of going out of fashion quite quickly...)

    This lack of precedent/language is manifested in a tendency to 'play it safe' when it comes to PH design. Since laws of diminishing returns dictate that each thermally profligate 'design feature' must be atoned for by tons of additional measures to compensate. Hence lots of smooth 'boxes'.

    I think as modelling software gradually becomes more accurate and flexible, it should become easier to make more confident, intelligent moves (for instance placing larger windows where they can benefit from passive solar gain and treating this as a 'useful' contribution - something FosterTom refers to frequently). People will probably argue that you can do all this already but I think until it becomes more responsive and visual (rather than spreadsheet based) this will be hampered somewhat.

    When it comes to volumetric changes though, you're probably into complex Computational Fluid Dynamics territory if you want it to be 'useful' i.e. helping stack effect ventilation etc. Perhaps the developments with cloud computing may make this kind of simulation more feasible in the future though...
  6.  
    PH is a concept, which can be used all over the world, for reducing building energy consumption. It will relate to architecture differently in every situation and hence true PH should not all look alike. Planning constraints, orientation, topography etc will all affect the architecture of a PH.
    • CommentAuthorcaliwag
    • CommentTimeOct 21st 2012
     
    Peter Starck is right, but to the point you talk about being spatially exciting. That is entirely down to wants, needs, desires of the occupier/clients surely. If they demand a cosy cottage-like interior then that can be a passive house. if they want an open plan-house with an atrium or double height space, then that can be a passive house.

    Take a look at the Viking-House.co.uk version of passive houses. To all intents and purposes these are 'traditional' houses...though they may well be spatially exciting inside.

    Incidentally, when I started to ponder this I thought 'well what would it be like spatially to live in a big greenhouse?' and then it occurred to me that Petersham Nurseries (petershamnurseries.com) is just a collection of greenhouses, but as they are used as a high-class restaurant and for plant sales, have a fantastic atmosphere of light and shade, created with light-weight screening and shading...not to mention distressed furniture, paintings, climbers etc, but a collection of greenhouses none-the-less (OK not remotely passive, indeed very active as they probably rely on big hot-air blowers to heat the space, but my point is the space could be anything, but it brilliant...triple glaze it, control heat-loss to the North, install a solid core, some Viking-House principles and you perhaps could have nearly a passive house.

    More pointedly, good architecture should be designed from the inside out and judged on same, based on wants, needs and desires of the users...it's called Responsive design. What it all looks like is entirely to taste.:cool:
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeOct 21st 2012
     
    Most 'twiddly bits' which do indeed often make houses look interesting, are horrible thermal bridges (balconies, dormers, bay windows, offset walls, overhangs). It is _much_ easier to design a passivehaus that is of relatively simple form. One way to make things both efficient and 'interesting' is to stick the interesting bits on the outside, essentially just as decoration, not as actual functional stuff. Which leads to interesting questions about whether there is any point having such things on a building if they are purely decorative references to some previous age, rather than actually functional? Perhaps it is 'right' that PH buildings are of simple form, and look that way too?
    • CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeOct 22nd 2012
     
    Posted By: wookeyOne way to make things both efficient and 'interesting' is to stick the interesting bits on the outside, essentially just as decoration, not as actual functional stuff. Which leads to interesting questions about whether there is any point having such things on a building if they are purely decorative references to some previous age, rather than actually functional?

    Indeed, fake chimneys are my 'favourite'!
    • CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeOct 22nd 2012
     
    Posted By: neilgorswiftYou can have the same form / volume one option with upper floors the other without. Upper floors could meet passive house standards the other not. That's the point I'm making it kind of dilutes the aspiration for passive house standard when it's based on treated floor areas not volume?
    I like energy efficient architecture that lifts your spirits every day. the fusion of Science and art

    Well one option offers twice as much accomodation as the other, so it's reasonable to expect that it might use more energy than the other. If you want tall ceilings, you can have them but you will need extra insulation to compensate for the extra heat loss from the extra wall surface. PH is an energy standard, not a design standard.
  11.  
    What could be more boring than a house which is always at 20C inside 365 days a year?

    Passive House is designed to be boring! :bigsmile:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeOct 23rd 2012 edited
     
    Even PHs have opening windows, for when that's comfortable
    • CommentAuthoran02ew
    • CommentTimeOct 23rd 2012
     
    I think you must ask yourself some fundamental questions before embarking on a PH project

    If all you require is an energy efficient home, then use PH principals with some of your own flare. Some minor infringements on the religious PH principals in an effort to create something more appealing to YOU is well worth the sin.

    Alternatively if you are on some personal journey to create the ultimate PH or some hitherto untried build, then build your odd unconventional shaped building to PH and there’s the challenge, good luck if the latter
    • CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeOct 23rd 2012
     
    Posted By: Chris P BaconWhat could be more boring than a house which is always at 20C inside 365 days a year?

    There's nothing saying you have to run it that way. We probably won't run our intended house that way. All PH says is that if you do run it that way, the energy consumption must be less than the PH limit. It's a measurement standard, not a religious way of life.

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