Pole construction, exposed
wood and stone, and high cathedral ceilings that invoke the majesty of the
surrounding Maine pines, define the character of this pristine farm house.
The design of the house is based on sustainable design principles, such as
optimizing heat gain from solar energy.
We designed the original
house plan as
a vacation house for a family of
four. Ten
years later they decided to move to Maine full time and asked
us to design a home addition. The inclusion of
sustainable strategies was a high priority in both phases of design. The later
design provides a living room, a separate guest area and a sun room. The
original house is small, but feels spacious with several children’s open
sleeping lofts located over the first floor rooms and connected by a bridge. The
addition is designed as a separate wing that can be closed off from the original
house. It is has an octagonal three-seasons room with extensive glazing that
maximizes visual contact with the beautiful surrounding site.
Applied Sustainable Strategies:
-
Tread lightly on the land: Using pole
construction on the first house, and by building where there were no trees, we
were able to minimize cut and fill and disruption to the site’s ecology.
-
Resource
Conservation: Much of the timber
for the building and the wood that fuels the stoves comes from the site.
Fieldstones from the site were used for the fireplace. Both these measures
eliminate the need to expend energy harvesting and transporting these raw
materials from other areas and helps with the forest management on their land.
-
Energy
Conservation and Solar Energy: The
sustainable building is
shaped to maximize passive and active solar heat gain in the winter. Solar
heating is captured from the many south facing windows in the masonry. A large
fieldstone fireplace and a large brick stove store the passive solar heat
during the day and redistribute it throughout the night. Solar panels on the
roof are solar water heaters that provide both the hot water for the radiant floors
of the addition as well as the domestic hot water. A hot water preheating tank
was built into the brick stove to
use excess heat from it. A green house works for plants and in the
winter as a wind lock.
-
The building envelop was
constructed with high (insulation) R-Value in the new house.
It is also submerged below grade to gain
insulation value from the soil.
-
Openings were placed
strategically to maximize ventilation on hot summer days and minimize heat loss
during the winter.
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Healthy Building Environment:
The energy crafted shell of the new house is tight. An active and passive fresh air
supply system was installed.
-
We used materials that do
not off gas toxic chemicals to insure good air quality.
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