Designed to realise the capacity of a constrained back land development site the low-energy contemporary single-storey home has energy efficiency and practicality at the heart of the scheme. Designed around a courtyard garden the home forms a back drop to modern life connecting the internal spaces directly to nature. Tailored Architecture has deployed the principles of Passive House and low-carbon technologies establishing a home for an environmental future.

The single-storey, two bedroomed home is designed for later life living and is derived directly from the context of the site and planning constraints. The optimised architectural form is articulated to break up the massing, providing natural light deep into the plan and facilitates maximum solar access. The roofscape is specifically designed with maximised pitches facing south at a 32 degree angle for grates solar access for energy generation. Creating a dwelling nestled in the landscape. The compact form reduces the potential future running costs.

The home is designed to blend the line between the internal semi-open plan spaces and the garden beyond with extensive sliding glazed doors to the southern aspect. The kitchen and dining area is designed at the centre of the house providing a sociable family space. The fixed solar shading to the south provides a semi-covered area to sit-outside with movable screens for use in high summer. A small courtyard is design to eastern end of the building to provide natural light and direct access to the outside from the bedrooms.

The materiality is traditional and vernacular in nature capturing the East-Cambridgeshire style, village setting and agricultural heritage. The pallet responds directly to the area character as set out in the local planning policy.

The front aspect onto the shared driveway is reflective of the scale of buildings surrounding the site while reducing the massing through breaking up the slab elevations with differing materials. A combination of Cambridge buff brickwork and dark stained timber cladding softens the addition of Zinc cladding and roofing and the corresponding integrated solar panels. Dynamic and fixed solar shading is designed into the facade in an agricultural aesthetic with metal movable louvred screens. Punched window openings provide views in the courtyard garden with the hit and miss brickwork boundary wall providing privacy from the shared driveway and screening the parking space.

The dwelling has been designed to reduce the overall running costs for future occupiers using our full sustainable approach. Find out more here. All our projects are designed to principles to reduce energy consumption and intensity prior to deploying low-carbon technologies.

The home will be constructed of a superinsulated timber frame, a continuous airtightness layer, and a low-carbon air-source heat pump driving underfloor heating. There is also a provision for the installation of a PV-T array with battery storage to provide both electrical generation and pre-heated domestic hot water.

The Courtyard House has been evaluated during the design process using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) to optimise the building envelope, form, and fenestration layout. Completed at an early stage and embedded in the design process demonstrates the potential of the project to reach the required energy targets. Minimising the running costs within the constrained site.

Further analysis will inform the approach to construction methodology and surface materials to minimise the embodied carbon impact of the development.