Winner of the 7th Active House Symposium – ERASMUSHOVE
On 16 and 17 October 2019 the Active House Alliance held its 7th symposium, where experts from all over the world interested in the sustainable construction exchanged ideas and best practices. This is the first time that this international event has come to North America.
During the event, the Active House Label Awards have been organized, where projects submitted to Active House have been evaluated and awarded in different categories.
ERASMUSHOVE has won the BUILT BUILDINGS WITH RADAR CATEGORY. The house in the Netherlands was created by architect Evert Hasselaar and developed by Bas Hasselaar.
The house is designed inside out: starting point was determining what ideal indoor climate was desired for which rooms. Amount of daylight, direction of light (morning light in bedrooms, evening light in the living room, northern light at workplace), preferred temperature, amount of ventilation, location of ventilation grills, risk of drafts, all was considered.
The building is kept compact to minimize heat loss through the building shell. Extra care has been taken during construction to create an air tight construction. Windows are positioned to gain optimal passive solar energy in winter. Heating is through low temperature water based capillary floor/wall/ceiling heating, with a reaction time of less than 1 hour, so it can be switched off, even in winter, when there is sufficient passive solar heat available. The house is all electric and fully energy neutral or even positive, having generated a surplus of 1350 kWh over 2018.
The materials on the facade were chosen to require little maintenance and age beautifully. The brick cladding requires no maintenance and is from nationally sourced clay which is considered renewable in The Netherlands. Freshwater consumption is less than half the national average. The total cost of the house is comparable to regular new construction, but it has much better performances all around.
In offering the award, the Jury Committee stated:
“A beautiful small and compact single family house, we could see it as a “wood living nest” where all the strategies of Active House and empathy with nature, environment, comfort and energy are clearly solved.”
