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How did you reconcile opening to the environment
when there are such temperature variations?
Left and above
The floating roof on the north elevation
permits deep winter sun penetration
with little need for artificial day-lighting
during any season.
The house when required, is quite porous. It’s all
about openings and accessibility. The coastal
climate here can be quite extreme with high winds,
so the design and build had to be fully water and
airtight. The biggest challenge was that the clients
enjoy a sense of opening to the sea and use of the
decks, yet the house needs to hunker down at other
times. Passive ventilation occurs through roof vents
and optimal windows to create air movement. The
big driver was creating a warm thermal envelope
that would pick up solar gains in winter and manage
those extremes of thermal gain across the seasons.
Use of Viridian’s double-glazed units incorporating
ComfortPlusTM are brilliant in achieving that.