Passive thresholds
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about passive thresholds
Project • By Luigi Rosselli Architects • Private Houses
Murra Murra Place
Boasting one of the most scenic settings in Sydney, the site of Prince Henry at Little Bay is loaded with history. Firstly as a significant aboriginal site; since the 1880s an important coastal hospital with a rich legacy collection of public buildings; and in 1969 the site of the memorable Christo’s “Wrapped Coast”.
This house design is a viewing platform to the amazing landscape and its historical context.
The unique aspect of the development is its simplicity and the reduction to the essential. The client and the Architect worked together to remove all the unnecessary gadgets and accessories normally attached to waterfront property.
The street access flows seamlessly to the open living space – which is designed as a vast pla... More
Project • By Turnbull Griffin Haesloop • Housing
Atherton Residence
Located on the peninsula south of San Francisco, this house sits on an internal suburban flag lot. The previous 1950s house, removed due to structural problems, featured mature landscaping and a manmade pond that the clients wanted to preserve. They wanted their new house to be a private retreat that maximizes the drama of the pond and takes advantage of the privacy of the site. The design solution breaks the program into four buildings – main house, study, pool house and garage – that ring the edge of the site and focus inward on the pond, garden and pool. Large sliding glass doors open directly out to the pond and terrace. The roofs conceal photovoltaic and solar hot water panels. The house is heated with a radiant system in the stone flo... More
Project • By Turnbull Griffin Haesloop • Housing
Hillside Residence
The house is sited to engage the undulating hillside and capture the spectacular views of Mount Tamalpais and the San Francisco Bay. A curved retaining wall follows the contours of the hillside and anchors the house to the steep site. The house is tucked under the living roof, which visually merges the house with the land. Growing out of the hillside, the roof is carved away to form a protected courtyard for the pool. Three volumes housing the living room, kitchen-dining area, and master bedroom rise up above the living roof with shed roofs angled to capture the sun for photovoltaic and solar hot water panels. The house incorporates passive and active heating and cooling systems, battery storage, and a cistern for water runoff management. More
Project • By Franklin Azzi Architecture • Private Houses
PASSIVE HOUSE
The house is surrounded by two extensions of the canvas that will be rooms or lounges summer. The extension consists of wood, canvas covers a camouflage of the Cuban Army. Above boxes of tissues is a wooden terrace overlooking the valley. Slab of the house is on extensions to the left and right and will include a heated floor and the external industrial sockets.
This slab, which will include intelligent most of the electricity grid and fluid will articulate the house In front of the house is located at a bunker of concrete to make an office / room alone. At the request of the owner this vacation will not be connected to water and EDF. The project therefore meets the requirements of High Environmental Quality's most restrictive, in parti... More
Project • By C.F. Møller Architects • Housing
villa alstrup
Villa Alstrup by the Wadden Sea has everything an exclusive villa should offer, but it is also sustainable. The villa is an energy-plus house, which means that it produces more electricity and heat than it uses. The energy is harvested from nature with the help of solar thermal collectors, solar panels and a geothermal heat plant. The building, which is designed on the basis of the 'passive house' principle, is compact in form, with large windows facing the view to the south-west, which is also the best angle at which to make optimal passive use of the sun's heat. The house is self-sufficient in electricity and heat through the use of solar and geothermal energy. In the spirit of the project, it is built from environmentally-sustainable mat... More
Project • By TECTONIC DESIGN • Apartments
Mason Residence
The Mason residence is a modern reinterpretation of the single family home. One a conceptual level, the house is based on the concept of a jewelry box. Warm wood exteriors open up to a softer sublet clean interior with jewel like lighting fixtures. The project was based on the European courtyard concept to introduce passive cooling to a climate with very warm summers and mild winters. The vertical windows as we all as the vertical fins and overhangs produce the shading required to keep the interior spaces bright and cool in the summer time. The interior courtyard featuring a water feature and pool create evaporative cooling which reduces or eliminates the need for air conditioning in the summer months. High end modern energy efficient ligh... More
Project • By Parsonson Architects • Housing
Pekapeka House
This holiday home is an exploration in how to create a building of both a strong architectural character and economy.
We have used simple modular construction techniques combined with a very simple form. The plan is a rectangle and is divided into 3 parts, the solid bedroom forms at each end support a floating roof over the living space in between.
This layout allows the living room to face both east to hills and west to the sea. It allows sun into the house throughout the day, for passive solar heating of the concrete slab and creates a sheltered outside space on the east side that still keeps a strong connection to the western sea views. More
Project • By SGA Limited • Apartments
URBAN SHED
A multifarious project that has seen the makeover of a tired, generic 1920’s bungalow into a modern, contextual, architectural home and provided a journey of personal and inventive discovery for the owner/architect/builder and team involved in the project.
The bones of the old house remain and have received a fresh, clean-lined skin of natural Zincalume and plywood. The linear axis of the original ‘shotgun’ plan has been reinforced by the alignment of new structural elements to enhance the connection with the site and the landscape beyond toward Mangawhau – Mt Eden.
The street façade presents complementary elements varying in form and texture with the central, illuminated ‘lantern’ courtyard marking the entrance. New additions inclu... More
Project • By Vandeventer + Carlander Architects • Private Houses
Lake Union Floating Home
Continuing a long and distinguished history of floating homes in Seattle, this new floating home is located on Lake Union, in the heart of the city. Offering panoramic views south of downtown Seattle, Queen Anne Hill to the west, and Gas Works Park northward, this home takes full advantage of its location. The clients requested a contemporary home which would provide the spaces required for comfortable living and gracious entertaining. The final design strives to meet these performance needs in a house that transforms what could be a banal "box" into one with architectural integrity.
Given a limited allowable footprint and the desire of the owner to maximize both interior living and outdoor entertaining spaces, the plan flips the typi... More
Project • By David Coleman Architecture •
HILL HOUSE
This is a modest, sustainable building with a big presence in a big landscape.
The Hill House is composed of a 20’ wide x 115’ long stepped platform, a shelter formed by the roof and east wall, and several gabion stone walls. It is sited on a long, narrow, rocky hillside, sloping gently to the south and steeply to the east and west. The building reads and lives like a habitable landscape, adapting to the changing seasons and needs of its occupants.
A light-framed, wood platform steps up the hillside and floats above it. Interior and exterior functions are delineated by a glass wall that wraps three sides of the structure. Finish materials are common throughout, blurring the line between inside and out. The result is a seasonally expa... More
Project • By Shed Architecture & Design • Private Houses
Backyard House
Located in a central but marginal Seattle neighborhood, the Backyard House is a speculative infill development that takes its name from its site—the subdivided backyard of an existing single family house. The projects fundamental objective, to build an affordable house suited to a broad range of potential buyers, resulted in a program that emphasized economical construction, long term operational efficiency, a limited palette of durable materials, and the creation of bright, naturally lit spaces integrated with the site and views.
The house is situated on the western half of the lot on the edge of a bluff and reached via a driveway that runs through the side yard of the existing house. A mandated parking area that accommodates two cars... More
Project • By Powerhouse Company • Private Houses
Villa 1
Villa 1 was the first commission for Powerhouse Company, two months after its founding in May 2005. Set in a clearing in a large pine forest, the program of Villa 1 is oriented optimal towards the views on the terrain and the sun. Half of the program is pushed below ground to meet local zoning regulations. This creates a clear dichotomy in the spatial experience of the house – above ground a ‘glass box’ ground floor where all mass is concentrated in furniture elements and below ground a ‘medieval’ basement, where the spaces are carved out of the mass.
The site offers beautiful views on the forest and has a great sun exposure that we wanted to fully take advantage of. The typical Y shape of the plan is the result of the optimal config... More
Project • By Simon Conder Associates • Housing
El Ray
Dungeness beach is a classic example of ‘Non-Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape. El Ray is part of a group of five beach houses located immediately to the east of the huge Dungeness A power station. The original house consisted of a 19th century railway carriage with flimsy lean tos to the north and south. It was in extremely poor condition and too small to accommodate our clients and their growing family. We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50%, and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house.
The new house incorp... More
Project • By Studio 804 • Private Houses
3716 Springfield Street House
This house is part of the revitalization of the Rosedale neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. It is near the University of Kansas Medical Center, nestled on a relatively secluded site with a broad exposure to the southern sun. It was the first LEED Platinum certified house in the Kansas City metropolitan area and targets net zero energy use over a calendar year but produces as much energy as it uses.
The house’s barn-inspired design conforms to the neighborhood while updating the classic gable with clean lines and large expanses of glazing. Everything is streamlined including the PVs on the roof that are set flush with the wood rainscreen to retain the clean lines of the building’s form.
It is a 2,500 square-foot, four-bedroom, two-an... More
Project • By Jackson Clements Burrows Architects • Private Houses
Cape Schank House
The undulating landscape at Cape Schanck is primarily a combination of cleared grass dunes (locally known as the Cups region) and expansive areas of dense Coastal Heath and Ti-tree shrub. The site is a designated wildfire zone and prior to the landscape being significantly cleared by early European farmers the area was inhabited by local aborigines.
On our first site visit we discovered the remnants of a hollowed out burnt log. This informed a starting point for an architectural exploration for the interiors and exterior where the form of the hollowed log suggested possibilities for an architectural solution.
The site is located on a high inland dune amongst dense coastal ti-tree shrub with expansive western views. On approach, the v... More