EHA Family Trust Residence is a sustainable architecture building designed by Ward+Blake Architects. It is located on a low lying wetland, so it needed special design to deal with high water table. Carbon footprint becomes an important consideration for the sustainable architecture design.
The green architecture house is elevated to deal with the water level. An insulated slab was installed on the grade to avoid the probability of fostering mold growth in a crawl space.
Environmental issues became consideration for the owner. The mature trees at the surroundings should not be cut, but the access to the north mountain view should still be good. Another thing was to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible, with low, efficient energy consumption. To deal with these, some sustainable features were applied, such as loop ground source heat pump for both heating and cooling, R-40 and R-65 wall and roof insulation to control the indoor temperature. Low VOC materials are used, and to reduce the energy use, they will use LED technology and and high output halogen light.
Environmental friendly materials such as 100% reclaimed material for exterior siding, renewable bamboo, low maintenance materials such as cor-ten roofing and fascia detailing. Another trick was to use a water soluble “lifetime” finish for new wood materials, and make them slowly weathered to a protective base coat over time.
This sustainable home has three parts, the main house, the barn and the guest house. The barn is covering the game room, and the garage, the guest house has a living room and bedroom for the guests, while the main house will cover the main living room, dining and kitchen area, master bedroom, also office space and a guest room.
