The General Volume refers to the neighboring houses in terms of form, but has a contemporary character with minimal details and sober colors.
The ceramic roof and brick veneer have been chosen in the same shade of red brown color to make the whole appear as one volume, as well as adapting to the local architecture.
The building responds to the aesthetic of the rest of the street with paired, gabled facades. Along the front elevation, the facades align initially with the neighboring buildings, but step back at intervals to follow the angle of the road. The development comprises two floors, including a basement, so the volumes are proportional in massing to the rest of the street.
Each unit is accessible from the street, and also from the basement through a staircase that connects each of the apartments. The bedrooms and common areas are arranged at the front of the plan for day lighting, while bathrooms are stacked in the center.
Window layouts
The proportions and arrangement of the windows are thoroughly contemporary. They are ruled by simple geometry, contrast and… economy. The location of the windows has been adapted to the directions of the world in order to minimize heat loss. And so, from the north, the ground-floor part of the building is very hermetic, while from the south, the living area and bedrooms opens to the garden with the main windows and a large glazed semi-roofed terrace in the First floor and roofed terrace on the ground floor. In order to receive daylight on the south side in the spaces on the upper floor, roof lights are introduced. The rest of the roof can, therefore, remain clear and empty.
Design and energy efficiency
In the design of the house structure, solutions considered to be typical were used - reinforced concrete footings, brick walls made of ceramic hollow bricks, reinforced concrete ceilings and a rafter truss fixed in the roof plane with steel strips.
The house is designed to be energy-efficient, therefore the external walls and the roof should be well insulated. The layer of thermal insulation of walls is 25 cm thick polystyrene foam with a thermal conductivity λ = £ 0, 031 W / (m . K).
Due to the orientation and placement of the facade openings, the building itself participates in the energy management: the open side is the north side where light enters, but the sun doesn’t. The more closed side is the south side, and the heat build-up is limited here. Supplemented with extra insulated walls, a heat pump and solar panels, this makes for a very durable home.