INCORPORATING SUSTAINABILITY
Amodernmews Ian Hogarth explains howa project close to his heartmarried sustainability credentialswith unique design requirements
The project to design and build our family home from scratch on a patch of garden in Kensingtonwas certainly an ambitious one. Not only werewe aiming to build a distinctive and spacious five- storey home on a small site thatwas pepperedwith constraints and complications, butwewere committed to making the building a sustainability exemplar.
Ian Hogarth, director of Hogarth Architects
www.hogartharchitects.co.uk
sowhenwe bought a small square of garden at the end of amews to build a family home,wewere investing a large part of ourselves into the
project.Afterwaiting for the opportunity for such a long time, itwas important that the result of our endeavours fulfilled our ambitions, both as architects and as homeowners. During both the design and
W
building processes,wemet a number of significant challenges. Not least, the site lies next to a
20 | Architects Choice |
ArchitectNews.co.uk
e had been looking for a site onwhich to build our home for 15 years,
busy railway line, and there is a river running beneath it. Dealing with these difficultieswas never going to be an easy feat. However, environmental considerations remained at the forefront of design decisions andwe looked for ‘green’ alternatives thatwould help us overcome the challenges we faced, such as using concrete madewith secondarymaterial LYTAG lightweight aggregate instead of traditional aggregate. Minimising the environmental
impact of the project has been central to our decisions and from our earliest concepts, the house has been designed to be sustainable both during the building process andwhen lived in. Having created bespoke homes across the UK and abroad for 30 years,we had explored a broad array of approaches and products to help improve a home’s ‘green’ credentials.We had alsowitnessedwhere opportunities have beenmissed. Building our house in Russell GardensMews has been our chance to build exactlywhatwe
wanted, and a part of thatwas to showcase the best of sustainable design and construction. The house was designed to
PassivHaus standards and an important element of the plans was to reduce the need for space heating and cooling through design. The heating that is required is provided by an air source heat pump –Mitsubishi is using the house to test new air source heat pump technology. The heat pump system upgrades naturally occurring energy from the air, and uses it to provide space heating and hot water. Using this system significantly reduces the CO2 emissions while occupying the house, as well as energy costs. A striking feature of Russell
GardensMews is the set of photovoltaic panels, specifically designed for residential properties thatwe’ve installed on thewall that looks across the railway track.We intend to install solar panels on the garage too, and togather the two sets of solar panelswill provide uswith dual
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52