Tag: passive solar
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240: Unearthing Passive House
Dean Hoggart found geology fascinating. He followed this passion hoping for a career in geothermal energy. After becoming a successful geotechnical engineer and drilling holes looking for oil and minerals, Dean realised he wasn’t really doing what he’d like to be doing. So he took a leap and changed career. Today, he’s a Certified Passive…
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233: Using the Gifts of the Site to Create Healthy Resilient Homes
Living Shelter Architects is a design firm led by Terry Phelan in the Northwest of Washington State. The focus of their work is to provide healthy, resilient homes by combining natural materials with the “gifts of the site”. Terry took the “path less travelled” by choosing to apprentice instead of studying at university to become…
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229: Be Significant
The rural town of Goulburn sits between Canberra and Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. With a population of around 24,000, it may not be huge, but its location makes it significant. In 2004 Simon Croker established SC Design Solutions in the Goulburn. During our conversation, Simon shared his inspiration and ideas on how designers…
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223: Sustainable Architecture
Throughout her career, Anne SalmnoIn has always been interested in sustainable architecture. In 2019 she was made a Distinguished Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, a high honour available to a maximum of only ten people at any one time. As a trailblazer throughout her career, Anne is a worthy recipient of this…
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221: Polystudio
Daniel Wolkenberg is a student of the 90s. He took the fairly typical route out of Architecture School and worked for a couple of different studios as a graduate. During this time Daniel worked on some fairly major projects such as Federation Square in Melbourne. He gained experience in master planning and got exposure to…
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153: Simple is the New Smart Home
What makes a ‘smart home’? Paul Dowsett and his team at Sustainable.To are dedicate to creating affordable, healthy and energy efficient homes, because that’s what Paul believes is ‘the right thing to do’. I think that a pretty good definition for a ‘smart home’. And the best way to achieve it? Keep it simple. Simple…
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148 Designing for your climate
Graham Hunt goes into a lot of detail when researching the local climate that will impact the comfort of a home. Designing for your climate includes an analysis of both the macro – the temperature, rainfall and humidity of the region, but also the micro – the local wind, shading and exposure of a particular site.…
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136: Thermal Mass Is Not That Useful
I recall visiting one of the fist 8 Homestar homes in Christchurch and being surprised that this new show home had a suspended timber floor. The double layer of insulation gave the floor a very impressive R-value, far better than any concrete floor slab I’d seen recently. All well-and-good, I thought. But thermally, surely it couldn’t be…
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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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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…