Replacement three / four bedroom detached house on an urban edge site in New Milton, Hampshire

The existing house on the site is in very poor condition and poorly configured for the clients’ use. The opportunity is taken to reorientate the house with the principle rooms facing due south for the beneficial solar gain. The windows to the north are minimal in number and kept small to reduce the heat loss and are mainly to the service rooms. The main accommodation is contained within a simple rectangle which simplifies the formation of a very well insulated and airtight shell ideal for a very low energy building. The garage and workshop are separated from the house and are to be insulated to a lower standard. Solar shading is provide by the balcony to the principle ground floor room and at first floor level to the main bedroom and study by fabric “sails” to reduce the potential overheating through the larger windows which are sized for winter and inter-seasonal solar gain and good daylighting levels. Elsewhere, the windows are to be shaded by external blinds to allow good control over the solar gain and daylighting.

The house design will been modelled in the Passivhaus Planning Package software to show compliance with the Passivhaus design standards. Experience indicate that the house is very likely to meet the requirements.

The house is sufficiently separated and hardly visible to the surrounding house and thus the materials are selected to be robust and cost effective to form the cladding to a timber framed house which helps towards reducing the embedded carbon within the construction to complement the low operational energy achievable with Passivhaus.

The design is at the late initial design stage awaiting a bat survey in May before the planning application can be submitted.