Port Hope House pushes Passive

July 3, 2018

Port Hope House combines energy-saving with high style. - Nameen Gorail

A stunning new house by Teeple Architects of Toronto has pushed the limits of design combining Passive House standards.
Port Hope House, as it is called, is centred on a 75-acre site overlooking Lake Ontario.
“As an architectural composition, the project offers a unique interpretation of the domestic space — a fundamental object of architectural inquiry — based on the particular experiences and opportunities of a site,” Teeple Architects explained. “Expressed as a small handful of sculptural but restrained moves, the project breaks the mold of contemporary home design in imagining the house as a natural form, an organic but certainly not pre-ordained result of creative exchange between architect, client and environment.”
The light-filled house features a high-performance envelope with heat-mirror film glazing and follows passive solar principles. Long concrete walls offer high thermal mass and are clad with charcoal zinc siding. Water and sewage are treated on site to reduce reliance on the grid. Rainwater is harvested for irrigation, and geothermal energy has been tapped for heating.