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Active House

Revision as of 12:49, 23 July 2020

1 Introduction
2 History
3 Principles
4 Nine key factors
5 Active House, not Passivhaus
6 Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
7 External resources

Introduction

The Active House initiative is based on the philosophy that buildings should be beneficial both to the environment and to the people who live and use them.

History

In 2011, representatives from around the world and across the construction sector - designers, architects, product designers, manufacturers, academics and so on - collaborated on strategies that would deliver holistic buildings that could be healthier for their occupants while being more beneficial to the environment.

Principles

The Active House principles have been applied to different types of buildings including residential, academic, commercial and others. The primary goal of the structures is to provide beneficial indoor environments with an emphasis on daylight and climate control as key contributors to mood and performance of building occupants. Additional contributing factors include energy efficiency, water conservation and sustainable materials.

For the thought leaders associated with Active House, the buildings are seen as ecosystems that should be self sustaining and are sensitive to the needs of the occupants. The building occupants are at the centre of the design.

Nine key factors

Three primary principles - comfort, energy, environment - were designated as the driving factors behind Active House. Within each of those principles there are nine factors associated with Active House specifications. Each factor has qualitative (or softer) and quantitative components.

Comfort

Daylight
Thermal environment
Indoor air quality
Acoustic quality

Energy

Energy demand
Energy supply
Primary energy performance

Environment

Sustainable construction
Freshwater consumption

An Active House radar incorporates all of the factors and illustrates how each one has an impact on each other (and on the outcome of the proposed design).

Active House, not Passivhaus

As the name implies, Active House is about actively taking the initiative to do whatever is possible to deliver desirable outcomes. It is a holistic approach to design. This is seen as a contrast to the Passivhaus approach, which stresses the significance of heating and cooling systems in buildings.

Developed in Germany in the early 1990s, Passivhaus suggest that, 'A Passivhaus is a building, for which thermal comfort can be achieved solely by post-heating or post-cooling of the fresh air mass, which is required to achieve sufficient indoor air quality conditions – without the need for additional recirculation of air.’ This means that a traditional heating or cooling system is no longer essential.

Whilst Passivhaus adopts the principles of passive design, it differs in its imposition of an overall limit on primary energy consumption. This limit includes; domestic hot water, lighting, projected appliance consumption, space heating, fans and pumps.