Abstract

This paper describes the design process of the 125 Haus, which is a compact single-family residential building for the Northern Utah Cold Climate Zone priced at market rate. A holistic, collaborative, and interdisciplinary approach to architecture leads to a carefully designed, highly energy-efficient, sustainable and cost-effective building, where the focus is on integrated passive energy design. This leads to a building that performs near net zero energy, operating almost independently of fossil forms of energy. For the design process, the author analyzed design and construction processes in the professional field of architecture for several projects in the same region, including documentation, analysis, and post-occupancy monitoring of the Park City Snow Creek project, which is a low-energy, 13-unit housing development for the affordable market. A major hindrance to efficient design and development process that allows for high performance buildings at market rate was identified by the author as being a lack of communication and understanding between architects, engineers, and contractors/builders that are involved in such processes, especially in the field of residential architecture. By bridging this gap, the design team of the 125 Haus was able to fully apply collaborative team efforts and synergies towards a well-designed, high performance, and cost-effective building. The integrated design process in tandem with energy modeling and a close collaboration between architect, contractor, and structural and mechanical engineers delivers a context-based and regionally rooted architecture. The result is expected to be 90% efficient over the IECC 2006 built-to-code benchmark.