Seminar VELUX Active House Technic

What is an active house?
An active house represents a comprehensive perspective on a building, which should not only be architecturally high quality but also provide users with a pleasant and healthy indoor environment without burdening the environment.
In an active house, it should be a given that its energy requirements are minimal. It should obtain energy as much as possible from renewable sources and its use should provide maximum comfort.



The vision of an active house is a long-term goal that seeks to combine all elements so that a balanced approach to solving the building in terms of utilizing renewable sources and achieving higher standards for its use arises. This relates to technologies, new materials, and their proper and most efficient use. Resource consumption reflects the quality of the technical execution of the building, details that are emphasized more than ever. The result is an optimal indoor environment: pleasant warmth, always fresh air, good acoustics, ample daylight, and overall comfort.
All of this should be achieved at an economically efficient price.
 
The first lecture by Professor Ing. Karel Kabele, Csc. (Head of the Department of Technical Building Equipment, Faculty of Civil Engineering CTU) began with a relevant saying that energy is currently placed above all, but we must not forget that houses should mainly be pleasant to live in. Generally, one can say that we move in a circle, where we are always solving three basic things: energy, economy, and environment. Energy consumption continues to rise, with approximately 40% of total energy consumption occurring in residential buildings, and our effort should be to reduce this consumption. To achieve a reduction in energy consumption in a building, we must view it comprehensively and address all components (lighting, HVAC, transportation systems, etc.) even if one of them may be dominant (heat).
The indoor environment is shaped by many components, from thermal-humidity climate, air quality, acoustics, visual aspects to psychological comfort. Any change in one of the components of the building's energy requirements will always affect more than one component of the indoor environment. Therefore, if we want to achieve a balance between energy demands and the indoor environment, it involves a complex process of balancing.

The question of the economic evaluation of energy efficiency was opened by Ing. Jiří Beranovský, Ph.D., MBA (EkoWATT). His lecture summarized the perspectives on which investment economics depend - costs vs. expenses, private finance vs. loans, and showed the outputs of economic evaluation. Of his components (net present value, internal rate of return, cash flow), people are most interested in the simple payback period. In the second part, the lecture was dedicated to case studies that compared renewable energy sources with conventional ones. Generally, it can be summarized that it depends on the individual integration and use of renewables.




Mr. Ing. arch. Josef Smola from the KADET studio passionately presented his realizations and studies of low-energy and passive houses. “The role of visionaries is thankless, and sometimes we struggle in the construction of passive houses with similar problems,” he states. He excellently introduced his part with the first “passive house,” which was the ship Fram of polar explorer Fritjof Nansen from 1883.
Mr. architect Smola considers the compactness of the volumetric solution of the building to be a key responsibility.






Then, from the opposite pole, Ing. Josef Šanda from the Department of Architecture at VŠUP stepped in. Is it correct to globally dictate what is good and what is not? Is it necessary to build houses that even produce energy? Is it not just a well-constructed pressure from groups of people who profit from it? With an analogy to large and non-functioning theories, Mr. Šanda also answers himself, suggesting that this dogma, like any other, can have a quite simple flaw at its core.
It is important to set priorities and think about where we direct our life energy. Investments in technologically advanced buildings are still quite large, thus it is up to each person whether they invest in lifelong payments on a passive/active house or, for example, on the education of themselves or their children.
Simple ecology cannot be an argument when we look at the number of increasing cars and airplanes each year.
A short break was very welcome, as it was really time to sort thoughts.

MgA. Patrik Zamazal from MOLO ARCHITEKTI s.r.o. brought us back to the issue of building details. On his projects, he showed how to work with details and what to watch out for. He emphasized how important it is to approach design from the whole to the detail and back again so that we do not lose perspective. All details must be contemplated in the study because, sometimes, on the construction site, it is already too late.
“Quality architecture can only arise from good observation and understanding of the people for whom you are doing it.”











Examples of such quality foreign architecture were presented by Ing. arch. Klára Bukolská. Specifically, it was the New Monte Rosa Hut, a mountain hut in Switzerland that is exceptional not only for its design but mainly for being 90% self-sufficient. Another example was Hunsett Mill, the extension of an old mill in southern England, and the active family house Sunlighthouse near Vienna.

Nicolas Roy, a Canadian "architect in the service of light," visually demonstrated the VELUX Daylight Visualizer at the end. A program that models natural daylight in your 3D model, including animation. Easy import from all the most commonly used modeling programs and perfect outputs with easy control speak for themselves.












The seminar was concluded by doc. Ing. Jiří Hirš, CSc., deputy dean of FAST, with a topic on the development of building structures and technologies. He drew us into the systems of smart buildings, the possibilities of nanotechnologies (active surfaces), and ended the lecture with questions about the overall energy balance. What to do with surplus energy? Sell? Accumulate or provide it specifically for use somewhere nearby? Personally, I liked the idea that being "eco" means being local. It is essential to not just utilize and rely on technology but also to make use of nature. A hybrid ventilation system (creating a suction effect both naturally and mechanically) is an example. In conclusion, he added that energy management is based on marginal conditions and by how different they are everywhere, it opens up the possibility of mutual cooperation within individual regions.

An active house is a long-term goal of reducing the impacts of buildings on the environment. The effort to maximize the use of renewable resources supports the emergence of new technologies and innovations in this field. However, for users, the most important is the indoor environment, for which demands are continually rising. A comprehensive approach to the design and construction of active buildings ensures the achievement of optimal results in both energy demands and indoor comfort. These qualities then represent the real value of a building.



About the VELUX Active House Award competition
The competition VELUX Active House Award is intended for students of universities focused on construction in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and was announced in two categories – new buildings and renovations. Projects can be submitted by individuals or collectives. The aim of the competition is to support the work of students on projects of sustainable buildings and enable them to get to know the issues of designing buildings in the active standard in more detail.
The partners of the competition include CTU Prague, the Czech Council for Sustainable Buildings, the Slovak Council for Green Buildings, and the Gallery of Jiří Fragner. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic has taken over the patronage.
Students can register for the competition until May 1, 2012. The deadline for submitting competition proposals is May 15, 2012. The ceremonial announcement of the winners will take place on June 15, 2012, at the Gallery of Jaroslav Fragner in Prague at the vernissage of the exhibition of all competition proposals. More information about the competition, including detailed conditions and application, is available on the websites www.velux.cz and www.velux.sk