While in the developed countries of Europe, from time to time, another new energy-efficient building appears, in the USA they decided to experiment with the existing housing stock and prove that not only new, but also old buildings can meet modern environmental requirements - if they are “properly” renovated. The Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) at Harvard University initiated the HouseZero project and took as a prototype a house built before the 1940s in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the city where the university is located. CGBC has turned it into its own headquarters with virtually zero energy consumption. Moreover: during its entire service life, the building will generate more energy than was spent on its creation and operation. The architectural component, landscape and interior design were handled by the Snøhetta bureau, while the technical part was provided by the Norwegian company Skanska Teknikk.
Super efficiency consists of four components and lies at the junction of advanced technologies and architectural solutions: it is 100% natural ventilation, complete independence from artificial lighting in the daytime, zero carbon dioxide emissions (taking into account the production and delivery of building materials), as well as the fact that the house practically does not require additional energy consumption for heating and cooling.
Natural ventilation is controlled by a drive system with smart software, which analyzes the indoor climate and automatically closes or opens windows (but no one forbids doing this manually). The roof and windows, in turn, are designed in such a way as to provide protection from direct sunlight in summer and to warm up the premises in winter.
Heating and cooling of the house is carried out through
geothermal wells. Solar thermal panels on the roof provide hot water to the office and, if necessary, can switch to heating certain zones. Photovoltaic roof tiles provide the required minimum of electricity, the excess of which is stored in the batteries installed in the toilet. In the backyard on the site of the former parking there is a "rain garden", where storm water collects.
All materials used are affordable, with high performance, which have a beneficial effect on air quality. For the decoration of the experimental house, local types of wood, natural clay plaster, brick and granite were used (both are recyclable materials); everything - with minimal processing.
HouseZero acts both as a real office and a research tool, a kind of living laboratory: 285 sensors are built into the building, which make almost 17 million measurements every day. The authors of the project believe that analyzing this data will help improve the infrastructure of the prototype, and in the long term - more efficiently design and operate houses.
Before
The 2015 Paris Agreement made it clear that the construction industry has a huge impact on global climate change. In the United States, in particular, this sector consumes about 40% of the total volume of energy resources, with about a quarter coming from residential buildings. At the same time, owners annually spend more than $ 230 billion on heating, cooling, and energy supply to their homes. “HouseZero demonstrates how to solve this problem by optimizing existing technologies and achieving unprecedented building performance,” explains CGBC Director Ali Malkawi. Over time, hopefully, research can significantly reduce the construction industry's environmental impact.
