Is the future looking bright for the houses without heating?

Haus 2226 in Austria harnesses natural energy. We ask architect Professor Dietmar Eberle how Irish buildings could follow suit 

Haus 2226 in Lustenau, Austria. 

It was dubbed the “house without heating” when Haus 2226 was constructed eight years ago.

Energy efficiency is often achieved by hi-tech retrofits, but Baumschlager Eberle Architekten has made 2226 a blueprint for the future — a building without air conditioning technology.

Designed to be an antidote to technology-powered buildings, the future-forward hub that features its designers’ international HQ as well as an art gallery, restaurant, offices and apartment, is located in Lustenau, in Austria.

Haus 2226 in Lustenau, Austria. 

SUSTAINABLE

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

It also offers architecture that is enduring and sustainable in both environmental and aesthetic terms.

Buildings may be using less and less energy, but the technological cost of these energy savings is rising.

Bucking this trend, the guiding principle at this architectural practice is “less energy with less technology”.

The award-winning Baumschlager Eberle Architekten’s 2226 building offers a glimpse of what the relationship between buildings, technology and people might look like in the future.

“The objective was to increase comfort levels while also using less energy,” says Professor Dietmar Eberle, co-founder and director of Baumschlager Eberle Architekten www.baumschlager-eberle.com .

Prof Eberle addressed the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland annual conference in Dublin on innovative sustainable work of the practice including Haus 2226.

At the RIAI www.riai.ie event, the largest in the Irish architectural calendar, architects were urged called on to take urgent action to tackle the climate emergency.

Haus 2226's name is a reference to the internationally accepted comfort temperature range of 22C to 26C.

The building eschews short-lived, cost-intensive heating and air-conditioning plant, preferring to rely on a newly developed software programme to control the flow of energy within the building.

Prof Dietmar Eberle.

STRUCTURE

A brick-built structure with walls, doors and high-ceilinged rooms, it requires little grey energy and its elementary architecture creates the sort of pleasant environment that comes from its “proportions and modes of operation”, adds Prof Eberle.

“Externally, the building measures 24m x 24m x 24m, the perfect aspect ratio in the classical sense but also in terms of energy since it provides the largest possible volume for the smallest possible surface area,” he says.

The windows, responsible for the visual elongation of the building and its “tower” perception, follow the standard ratio of 5:3.

This ratio is familiar from cinematography and achieves optimum daylighting on the 12-metre-deep upper floors, where the room height is 3.36 metres.

At the same time, the windows represent only 24% of the overall building shell and so help to minimise heat loss.

This notion of combining comfort and energy savings reflects the collective knowledge acquired at the firm. “The basic idea is actually quite simple,” adds Prof Eberle.

“Instead of the building reacting to its technical systems, it responds to human inputs, to the warmth and humidity generated by its users and the way they convert oxygen into CO2.”

PRACTICAL MAGIC

I’m keen to know how this type of architecture can be used in domestic/residential home design.

“The knowledge which is based in 2226 can be adapted to any kind of use – especially to buildings used for education, offices, housing — the only exception would be some very specific buildings like churches, or the OT in hospitals,” says the architect.

As for retrofitting existing homes, is the situation similar in his native Austria to Ireland? “There are a lot of different supports and grants but in much smaller scales related to areas or cities but not to the nation in general,” he says.

“These supports are mainly used for the renovation of the technical equipment (changes from burning fuel or gas in direction of heat pumps and better insulation standards).”

Are there any priorities, for instance, improving the lowest BERs, or relating to the social needs or income of occupants?

“The priorities are always related to these quite local policies but for the buildings we do, the social need and the income of occupants are the crucial most important questions,” he adds.

Where does he stand on the question of demolition versus upgrades?

“The target is to increase the comfort level and the quality of living in every building, so it’s not a decision of demolition or upgrades, it is always a question of what the most reasonable solution for the giving conditions is,” he says.

Prof Dietmar Eberle.

IRISH HOMES

And while Ireland is not as cold as many areas on the Continent, it is certainly damper — does he find this makes a difference in design?

“According to temperature, Ireland is much more suitable for the knowledge and technology we use,” says Prof Eberle.

“The question of humidity is mainly a question of what kind of materials are to be used in the building.

“The opening of the windows is mainly related to the carbon dioxide level in the building — so the humidity issue according to the short ventilation times is not as dramatic as it looks.”

What about house size: castles versus cottages; should sprawling McMansions carry a levy of some sort given energy demand per square metre? “I do not believe in punishing people by higher prices but I believe in persuading people by higher comfort and lower price,” he says.