My lazily blogged image of Bill Dunster’s ruralZED from the floor at Ecobuild has produced some useful comments from one of his colleagues, bringing news about crucial elements of the design that deliver the thermal mass and also mention of upcoming timelapse photos of the 3 day construction…
hogthrobb says:
Hi Eversion,
thanks for posting this, I work for the architects behind it. Yours is the only picture so far posted on flickr.
Did you enjoy the house?
eversion says:I did enjoy the house, but only from the outside as I was pressed for time and there was quite a queue.
I’m a big fan of passive solar techniques and have been pursuing the same approach in my own work too. The construction approach here is very satisfying and the joinery reminds me of Walter Segal’s work. I heard Bill Dunster talk very convincingly against lightweight construction at a conference a couple of years back, so was slightly surprised to see timber frame being embraced so wholeheartedly. I guess the mass here is to be found in the super insulated walls.
Final comment is that I was also delighted to find that it wasn’t quite so frumpy (a well known architectural term!) as the PR had seemed… the axonometric of the CFSH stages doesn’t do it justice.
p.s – I met with Phil Clark from Building magazine over lunch that day and he was telling me all about the video interview he did with Bill. I’ve just noticed that he has posted it on his blog:
sustainaballs.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/dunster-video-.html
hogthrobb says:Yes we still dont believe in light weight construction but the building has specially designed eco concrete wall panels and terracotta ceilling blocks so plenty of thermal mass. Sorry you couldnt get in – we had crowd loadings to consider and the health and safety for the exhibition were straight out of the SS hand book. It was good for us though as we had a queue for 3 days which always attracts interest.
I have seen the interview its pretty good – we will have a timelapse up at www.ruralZED.com sometime this week which is worth a look.