Home Style Green

114: Passive Solar Design

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Matthew Cutler-Welsh
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Peter Olorenshaw is passionate about passive solar design
Peter Olorenshaw is passionate about passive solar design

Peter Olorenshaw has been developing his passion for passive solar design for over 21 years in Nelson, one of New Zealand’s sunniest spots. While he does practise architecture elsewhere, like his designs, he prefers to keep it local.

Passive Solar Design

Peter’s tips for designing a good home include:

  1. Location – it’s hard to retrofit good community, so try and get this right first.
  2. Orientation – Peter tries to get sun into every bedroom and minimise the east and west glazing. Check out some of his examples.
  3. Size – ‘Tiny Houses‘ might be a bit extreme, but they offer good lessons for affordable comfort.
  4. Expertise – find an architect, ideally one with passion!

Contact Peter via his website at http://www.peteroarchitect.co.nz/

With good passive solar design, it's possible to get sun right to the back of your building.
With good passive solar design, it’s possible to get sun right to the back of your building.
Tiny Houses might be extreme, but they offer good lessons and demonstrate that small can be beautiful, comfortable and affordable. This 3 bedroom house is a compact 68 m2 and a very affordable $150,000.
Tiny Houses might be extreme, but they offer good lessons and demonstrate that small can be beautiful, comfortable and affordable. This 3 bedroom house is a compact 68 m2 and a very affordable $150,000.
I love stylish examples of contemporary passive solar design.
This is what Home Style Green is all about. I love stylish examples of contemporary passive solar design.

Comments

4 responses to “114: Passive Solar Design”

  1. 229: Be Significant – Simon Croker, SC Design Solutions

    […] Reardon’s influence combined with growing design trends initially lead Simon towards with passive solar. Then he found Passive House which blew him away. He likes the concepts of passive solar design, […]

    Reply
  2. Passive Solar and Passive House – Home Style Green

    […] Around the time I was cutting carbs, I spent a lot of time researching and advocating for insulating the edges of exposed concrete floor slabs as a means of increasing the effectiveness of thermal mass in houses. I also become slightly infatuated with eaves, big wide ones that could shade a house from the summer sun while allowing the lower-angled winter sun to penetrate into the home. Seasonal shading and thermal mass are two of the primary features of passive solar design. […]

    Reply
  3. ergodesk Avatar
    ergodesk

    Anyone who says that Passive House, Net Zero and other Energy Efficient concepts cost more, the reason probably is that they failed to first utilize some or any of Peters Tips. in their design.

    Reply
    1. Matthew Cutler-Welsh Avatar
      Matthew Cutler-Welsh

      Great point, thanks Ergodesk

      Reply

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