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Green Cambridge prototype home wins award |
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3 Jun 2015, 10:32 AM
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A Cambridge housebuilder has won the Best Eco-Living Award for its Virido Concept House at the Evening Standard New Homes Awards. The judges recognised the home as surpassing industry targets in terms of energy efficiency, recycling and sustainability.
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The green building in Trumpington has been constructed in advance of the larger zero carbon Virido site, where work is due to start shortly.
This is planned as an exemplar development that combines the very best in design, sustainabililty and low carbon living. With a sustainable homes coding of level 5+, all homes are being designed to achieve high levels of fabric efficiency, approaching the Passivhaus standard, so they will be super insulated, air tight and mechanically ventilated with heat recovery.
Working within the broader master plan and corresponding Design Codes, the scheme will eventually provide 209 new homes and commercial accommodation. The residential accommodation is arranged in a grid of quads surrounding a new park, the green quad, at the heart of the site. The QUAD is the essence of the master plan. It sets out a rigorous hierarchy of spaces with an innate concentric layering of materials and usage – from the street, past the swale, to the private threshold, through the home to the internal courtyard – closely integrating building and landscape. There is rigour and order as well as variety and individuality.
The new homes will have a private or shared gallery entrance way at street level. Each QUAD comprises around 23 homes. The plan form accommodates a range of home size and type – one, two and three bedroom apartments and houses. Each home has a private patio garden.
The accommodation within the homes is arranged to optimise orientation, outlook, light and natural ventilation.
As this will be one of the largest zero-carbon developments in the UK, builder Hill developed the Concept House to assess which sustainable features are best suited to modern family life and to monitor the building performance when occupied.
A Cambridge family, the Rayners, were selected to live in the house and report on how they use the technology over a year. Their feedback and the technical research gathered from the project will influence which technology Hill includes in the larger scheme.
Virido (which means to become green in Latin), will be part of the Great Kneighton development, to be delivered in conjunction with Cambridge City Council, which is set to deliver 2,300 much-needed new homes between Trumpington and Addenbrooke's Hospital.
Rob Hall, deputy MD at Hill, said: "Carbon-zero living is the future and we are thrilled to have our pioneering work rewarded with this accolade. Through our research with the Rayner family we hope to find the perfect balance – building homes which have minimal impact on the surrounding environment and promote a sustainable lifestyle which is also easily achievable for everyday families."
The Rayners are meeting regularly with an academic from Leeds Beckett University who will monitor and record data about the family on all aspects of their new zero carbon life. Sustainable features in the home include:
Triple glazing
High levels of insulation
Heat recovery ventilation system which pumps warm air out and brings clean cool air into the building
Photovoltaic panels
Rain water harvesting
A green roof
Fruit and vegetable planters in the garden so the Rayners can grow their own food.
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