The passive house of the year 2016 is a wooden building from Černošice

House under the spruce, ARCHCON atelier, s.r.o., photo: Kateřina Šoulová

Prague - The Passive House of the Year 2016 has been awarded to the wooden structure House under the spruce from Černošice by the Archcon atelier. The second place went to the family house Kociánka from Brno, and the third was the Atrea house from Liberec. The voting results were announced today at the opening of the fairs For Pasiv, Cesty Dřeva, and Střechy Praha.

This year's competition received entries from 53 energy-efficient buildings. An expert jury selected the 13 best ones. From mid-December to the end of January, visitors to the server chose the winner. A total of 4,815 voters participated, with the winning building receiving nearly one-fifth of the votes.

The winning house is a two-story wooden structure with a shed roof. The floor area is 142 square meters. Its author, the Prague-based Archcon atelier, focuses specifically on designing low-energy and passive wooden buildings.

A building can be labeled a passive house if it has a very low energy consumption for heating. The key is heat recovery, known as recuperation, where a system of pipes exchanges air and heat remains inside.

The share of new passive houses in the total number of built family houses in the Czech Republic last year remained roughly at 4.5 percent. There were between 600 and 700, similar to 2015. The total number of passive houses exceeded 3,000 last year. This is based on data from the Center for Passive Houses.