Sustainability Report

Embodied carbon strategies

• Although Barcelona House was not designed to achieve formal certification, Ström Architects adopted passive house principles as a guiding framework — prioritising a fabric-first approach, airtightness, and passive shading through careful orientation. This focus on performance and longevity directly supports the project’s low embodied carbon intent.
• Material selection also played a central role. The house is built from robust, natural materials chosen for durability, local sourcing, and low transport impact. Local stone grounds the structure in its setting, while oak cladding provides a renewable, long-lived external finish that will age gracefully over time. These materials minimise replacement cycles and promote circularity through longevity.
• The architecture itself reinforces this ethos: stripped back to essentials, the design avoids visual excess and passing trends, ensuring the building remains functional and relevant for decades to come. This inherent timelessness is viewed as a form of sustainability — an investment in endurance rather than reinvention.

Operational emissions strategies 

• Barcelona House operates as a hybrid off-grid property, designed to produce more energy than it consumes for six months of the year. A generous photovoltaic array was deliberately oversized to enable energy export to the grid during summer months. Combined with a substantial battery storage system, the house can meet night-time demand independently, reducing annual CO2 emissions by several tons.
• High-efficiency heat pumps further reduce energy consumption, delivering three to four times the energy they draw and cutting household CO2 emissions by up to 70 percent compared with conventional systems. Passive measures reinforce these gains: the lower floor is embedded into the hillside to provide natural thermal stability, while the roof overhang shades the fully glazed facade.
• The glazing system itself — the Vitrocsa TH+ Sliding System in an Invisible Frame – Two Tracks configuration — supports the home’s performance goals, offering expansive openings and uninterrupted views without compromising airtightness or thermal efficiency.