Active House design gets a real-life test drive
This first labeled Active House in the world is located in the suburban West End of Toronto, Canada in Great Gulf’s Centennial Park Residence and designed to improve human comfort and well-being.
The Active House label is a world wide quality stamp for comfortable and sustainable buildings. It advices on elements that are important to humans life and living in their homes.
The project is a result of collaboration between Great Gulf, the investor and builder committed to evolving the Active House concept in Canada, the award-winning Toronto architecture firm Superkül and the VELUX Group.
Living in Active House
To better understand what it means to live in Centennial Park Residence, Russell Ibbotson, Technical Manager for Building Industry at VELUX Canada, will be moving into the home with his wife Bethany and their three children for six months.
Russell Ibbotson explains: ‘People know how to build a house like this, but after living in it and being able to experience it, we’ll have a much better understanding of how it functions that will resonate with a wider audience.’
‘Just like living outside,’ were the words of 3-1/2-year-old Eleanor Ibbotson when she walked into her new Etobicoke home and saw a tree growing inside the courtyard.
Follow the life in an Active House
The idea of the project was to use less technology but activate homeowner to operate the house in order to maximize its performance and meet the desires of the family. Taking this into account the Ibbotson family will document the home’s many energy-efficient features — and how indoor climates affect them physically and mentally. Their experiences will be shared through a blog, short videos and social media channels. The Ibbotson family evolving narrative will include a number of scientific experiments that will form the basis of a quantitative analysis.
Great Gulf president Christopher Wein says:
‘We wanted to see the house in action and that wouldn’t have been possible if we’d sold it. Having a family living in the house, keeping and recording data points, will allow us to see it ‘in action.´
Follow the blog from the family here
