Designs That Work
Very Cold Climate
The Basic House - Description of the House
The case study house is a 1190 square foot, three bedroom,
one-and-a-half-story single-family detached house.
The elevation drawing on the previous page shows the raised ground
floor and overall compact form of the house. The ornamental trim was
chosen for a prototype house that was built in a Haida community.
The ground floor has two entrances: one from the large porch at the
front of the house, and the second into a back hallway behind the kitchen.
All of the essential rooms in the house are located on the ground floor
making a conversion to a fully accessible home possible. At the front of
the house, the dining area and living room are discretely separated
visually by the main structural support for the second floor, creating a
much larger space in an otherwise compact plan. The washer and dryer are
conveniently located in the hall closet in front of the stairs to the
second floor. Under the stairs, the building’s mechanical systems are
neatly concealed.
Figure 2: Very Cold Climate house floor plans (Right: Ground Floor,
Left: Second Floor)
The plumbing runs underneath the ground floor
platform in an insulated pipe chase. The back wall of the hall closet
serves as a vertical chase for the plumbing for the bathroom and
ventilation for the bedrooms on the second floor. The piping and ductwork
is kept to a minimum, reducing energy use and minimizing the number of
bulkheads in the living space.
On the second floor, the drawings show a second bathroom off the
hallway at the top of the stairs and two bedrooms to the front and back of
the house. Since all of the mechanical systems are located downstairs and
all of the insulation is located outside of the framing, the ceilings on
this floor may be left open to make the bedrooms feel larger. At both
sides of each bedroom, knee walls can be added to provide large closets
for storage. The second floor plan above shows several different
configurations for this storage. Leaving these rooms for the homeowner to
construct when needed in the future is also possible as a way of reducing
the initial cost of the house.
A high-performance, energy-efficient house depends on rational and
efficient space planning. The Very Cold Climate house plan presented here
is organized to simplify construction and reduce the materials and
operating costs. However, it does this while still providing the homeowner
with a convenient layout and large, spacious rooms. Attention to
architectural design, it should be noted, is one way of securing a
high-quality, affordable and comfortable home.
The following section discusses how the building enclosure and
mechanical systems have been designed to help this house be durable,
healthy and energy-efficient. |
