Indoor temperature (Climate change)

During the winter period, sunlight is not strong as other seasons, but due to the air is dry and cold, radiators are on, indoor humidity may not suitable for living. And the furnitures could also crack due air humidity is too dry. It is important to have appropriate temperature and humidity in the indoor environment, it directly affects a person's health, if the temperature and humidity is too high or too low, will not conducive to human health.

In general, the indoor temperature best to human body is 15-18C. When indoor humindity is less than 35% or ventilation is unfavorable or indoor temperature is more than 25C. It could affect a person feeling uncomfortable. As most people spending a lot of time in indoor place, good indoor condition is important. Besides, ventaliation is the greatest thing that affecting these  factors.

In UK, there are regulation requirements that requires the designers to follow when designing a building in terms of the ventilation. From the building regulation F (ventilation) it outlined the requirements when designing a house. As I mentioned about EcoHats on previous blog, the EcoHat can also supplies pre-heated air in winter times and cooled air at night time, the system can also help not to overheating in a house. As you can see the photo below, Oxley Woods houses is a good example in terms of ventilation, there are windows in different rooms, even in the toilet. Also on every floor, there is a balcony which it allows tenant open the balcony door to providing fresh air for the corridor area and rooms. 

Lifetime Home (House design metrics)

In early 1990s, a building for life, “livable” and “sustainable” were more concerned. Group of people were suggested a home should be accessible, comfort, convenience and inclusive. Lifetime Home is a guide for designer as a reference when designing a building, it creates better living standard to everyone, for small children, illness people, and the disability people. 

For the Lifetime Home standard, there are 16 design criteria for the designer to follow, it covers both internal and external of the dwellings  Such as the bathroom size, main entrance size, circulation space etc. All of these standards are not necessary to follow it, however the more in the house, the better living for the special need people. ( You may view the details of 16 criteria here http://www.lifetimehomes.org.uk/pages/revised-design-criteria.html  )

From my example of sustainable house ( Oxley Woods), they have WC at ground floor, first floor and second floor, it helps the disability people living more comfortable in the house. The size of the toilet has over 30m to 30m size, which the size is even more than the standard required. Besides, as I mentioned about the standard is just a reference for the designer, "(12) Stairs and potential through-floor lift in dwelling", some Lifetime Home houses may design a life shaft for putting the lift inside the house, but not for Oxley Woods. Moreover, you may look at the photo below, they used a clear span construction enable future adoption like stair lift for the Lifetime Home.

In addition, the standard also mentioned the external part of the dwelling. Oxley Woods has also have a covered main entrance (Photo A). There is a Balcony on top which it could provide a shelter for the tenant when getting in the house. The designer also fitted a handrail at the stairs which some houses built in olden days are not included (Photo B).

(Photo A)

(Photo B)

Marcus Fairs. (31 May 2007). Oxley Woods by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. Available: http://www.dezeen.com/2007/05/31/oxley-woods-by-rogers-stirk-harbour-and-partners/. Last accessed 19th Oct 2013.

Lifetime Home. (5 July 2010). 16 Design Criteria from . Available: http://www.lifetimehomes.org.uk. Last accessed 20th OCt 2013.

Off-site construction

Precast is a method of building construction. It meant the building construction method is a pre-process, what we so called "prefabrication". From the factory site and move all the pieces to the building site. Now prefabrication technology has been upgraded to "three-dimensional level", by the inner and outer walls, floor tiles and a bathtub etc., made it in the factory, after transport to the construction site and assembly.

In terms of sustainable, construction industry is considered producing a lot of pollution. And off-site construction can benefits more eco-friendly. Precast everything at the factory can effectively reduce material consumption, especially precast the interior parts as it always produce a lot of  construction waste. Besides, other than the waste, precast construction can also reduce the sound and air pollution during the construction.

Oxley Woods is one of the sustainable building example in UK. For that reason, the chose precast technology to built all those 145 houses. "each house to be quickly and economically erected while maintaining build quality "As you can see from the photos, the building method is like a "lego", put everything piece by piece. Yet, they even just required less amount of people and skills to construct everything. 

Marcus Fairs. (31 May 2007). Oxley Woods by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. Available: http://www.dezeen.com/2007/05/31/oxley-woods-by-rogers-stirk-harbour-and-partners/. Last accessed 19th Oct 2013.

Standard of a bathroom (House design metrics)

A quality and sustainable houses is necessary to have a standard quality of bathroom. In terms of essential practicality, the bathroom is used often in our daily life, without it people just could not live comfortably. For example, the shower might be sounds not really important to us, but it is used at least once per day. Second, from the view of resale value, some buyers when purchasing a new home, the first things that he/she may look at is the bathroom condition. Besides, a better interior of the house could easily to attract the buyers consideration.


In addition, there are few standards for the designer for referencing when designing a house. The most heard standard is "Parker Morris Standard". "In one, two and three bedroom dwellings, one flushing toilet is required, and it may be in the bathroom". As human life compared to olden days has improved a lot, it is now important to have a bathroom in every drawling instead of few families sharing one. Besides, there is another standard by National House Building Council (NHBC), however the minimum standard for the bathroom is very small. The diagram below is the standard of gross internal floor area that Parker Morris suggested.

As everyone should have many stuffs at home and need a space for storage, Parker Morris Standard also mentioned about each home needs to have a store room for storage. For Oxley Woods, as you can see the in the floor plan below, there is a store room below the stairs on the ground floor.


Metric handbook is a reference about the latest construction standards and new building types. It also presented the idea of sustainable design. It  gives the requirements when designing, it also status out the regulations for the designer needs to be aware of when designing a building.

You can see the floor plan of Oxley Woods, 3 bedrooms dwelling also includes with 1 WC and two bathrooms. And the size of each WC are reasonable enough. As Oxley Woods is an example of a sustainable housing, ventilation has to be considered. Therefore, each toilet has included with a window, even if cleansing or dyeing hair, the window can easily to get rid of the smells from the chemical. A window in the toilet can even get more natural light in during the day time, it is more eco-friendly and saved the cost of the bill due to lessen the use of electricity.

Reference: HATC Limited . (August 2006). Housing Space Standards. Available: http://legacy.london.gov.uk/mayor/planning/docs/space-standards.pdf. Last accessed 17th Oct 2013.

Low energy design- EcoHat ( Design precedents)

UK Government promised that all new homes would be 'zero carbon' from 2016, National House Building Council (NHBC) is a guidance department to help the industry meet its challenges. There are 10 elements in the guide that helps to design, one of them is "Low and zero carbon technology". Besides, solar heating system, floor cooling system, Photovoltaics..etc are the technologies which can apply in houses to made it more sustainable. 

The houses at Oxley Woods are using a new technology called "EcoHat". When the solar panels in the boxes got heated by the heat, it will sends it into the house for heating the home, or it can be used to heat hot water. In addition, the difference of the system is, it allows hot air to rise and consequently be reused to provide passive solar water heating. Hence, the system can significantly reduce the energy required to heat and cool the homes compared to standard homes. That also can solved the problem of the solar panel on the roof are ugly argument. The system could help  reduction in CO2 emissions.

Sustainable Homes (design precedents)

The standards of housing in the UK have been widely criticized and today housing improvement is a major concern. A house designed to reduce pollution,water and energy usage, improve tenant comfort and create healthier living environment which we so called "sustainable", is a manner which the designer has to follow and the tenant demand or it. Oxley Woods is an example to define the meaning of sustainable housing. "The houses were designed to exceed 2002 Part L Building Regulations, meeting Code Level 3 in the Code for Sustainable Homes." 

In terms of reduceing pollution,water and energy usage to be more sustainable, the entreance hall of the houses were built with marmoleum tiles eco flooring, and all rooms are built with  LED eco lighting. Therefore, from the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) graphs shows, the houses got 81 points for the energy efficiency rating. 

Sources:
Uk Gov. (2013). code for sustainable homes. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-energy-efficiency-of-buildings-and-using-planning-to-protect-the-environment/supporting-pages/code-for-sustainable-homes. Last accessed 15th Nov 2013.