Tag: eco design
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114: 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: Location – it’s hard to retrofit good…
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104: Architecture in Harmony with the Earth
Can you imagine meeting someone at university with similar interests, falling in love with them, then starting a practice together offering complementary design services to provide beautiful, functional architecture in harmony with the Earth? Sounds pretty idillic. And it’s what Matthew Swett and Sarah Birger have done to create Taproot Architects. Throw in the fact that they…
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103: It’s All About Airtightness
Derek Ward’s strength is the science that connects good design with good performance. Clioma House specialises in ‘airtightness and effective insulation’. They help bridge the gap between the drawing board and the construction site. Call the Experts, Early The sooner you think about how much you want to do in relation to performance, the cheaper…
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101: Vernacular Construction
Episode Foundations (the bottom line at the top) Invest up front in a good designer and you’ll save during construction. Vernacular construction is about designing and building appropriately for the local conditions. For a sustainable home, focus on insulation and ventilation.
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How 475 can help you achieve a high performance home
So, you’ve decided you’d like a really good home. One that’s comfortable, healthy and energy efficient. That’s great, but unfortunately it’s not (yet) standard practice. Hopefully you can find a good designer to help (try this list if you like). But you’ll also need some good, non-standard products. This week I spoke with Ken Levenson…
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How to get a Passive House
In episode 30, I spoke with Elrond Burrell and asked if Passive House (or Passivhaus) was really relevant to some parts of the world. This sparked some great debate and I subsequently caught up with Jon Iliffe of eHaus to find out how to get a passive house in New Zealand. European Inspiration Jon’s training is in mechanical…
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Homestar Mandatory Minimums
The Homestar mandatory minimums are a series of benchmarks that have to be achieved in order to progress up the Homestar scale. They’re important because if they are are not achieved, your score will be held back. So what are the Homestar mandatory minimums, and how can you achieve them? What are @HomestarNZ mandatory minimums…
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Where do you start a sustainable house?
So, you know you want a sustainable (healthy, efficient, affordable and desirable) home, but where do you start? I’ve covered the fundamentals of what makes a good energy efficient home, but these are details. What’s the big picture? Where do you start a sustainable house? Start with ‘Why?’ In episode 91, Glenn Murdoch spoke about…
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Start with Why
If you’ve listened to more than a few episodes of the Home Style Green podcast, you’ll notice that I like to start with why? My favourite first question to designers and architects is ‘why do you what you do‘? Simon Sinek – Start with Why Glen Murdoch is a Passive House designer and innovator, based…
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Designing Environmentally Functional Homes
Duncan Firth feels ‘compelled’ to do what he does – designing environmentally functional homes. He’s very conscious of humans taking more than giving from our environment and he sees the potential for architecture to be a positive influence in correcting this balance. Responding to the Environment Many architects (and people writing about houses) talk about buildings…