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An Award-Winning, Sustainable Home Born From Collaboration

09.11.15 | By
An Award-Winning, Sustainable Home Born From Collaboration

A collaboration between architecture firm Snøhetta, Scandinavia’s largest independent research company SINTEF, Zero Emission Building (ZEB) partner Brødrene Dahl, and Optimera, led to the award-winning Plus House Larvik, which was designed to generate an energy surplus that can power an electric car year-round. Just announced, the pilot project in Larvik, Norway is the winner of WAN Sustainable Buildings 2015 Award.

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The goal was to demonstrate solutions to improve comfort along with consuming low amounts of energy. They also wanted to build a house out of wood that follows Norwegian building traditions. While it’s built as a single family home, the project is going to be used for demonstration and learning purposes about sustainability.

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The sloped roof tilts towards the southeast and is outfitted with solar panels and collectors, which combined with the geothermal energy from ground energy wells, is more than enough energy to run the house.

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An outdoor atrium is surrounded by stacked wood and bricks giving it a cabin-like feel. It also helps bring daylight into the interior through the large glass panes.

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Photos courtesy of Paal-André Schwital.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.