Commissioned to create a family residence in an area known for its cold, snowy winters and hot summers, Florian Busch Architects has completed the House W. Taking the form of a timber barn-inspired structure that’s partially covered in solar panels, the home’s energy efficient design allows it to harness almost twice as much power as it requires annually.
House W is located in Nakafurano, Hokkaido, Japan. The home is situated on the site of an old farmer’s barn and is surrounded rice paddies and asparagus fields, so draws inspiration from this setting.
The exterior is part-finished in a solar skin that allows it to run off-the-grid (together with a battery array). A studio representative told us that there are 56 panels installed, resulting in a total capacity of 23 kW. This is combined with a heat pump that’s connected to a nearby water source and offers a relatively constant temperature throughout the year, allowing it to run the underfloor heating as well as producing warm water for the house.
We’ve no figures on the home’s actual power usage, but Florian Busch Architects says the solar panels provide almost twice as much as its requirements, annually.
This is great, because it shows the possibilities. Water source heat pumps make air source look like a toy, and those in turn make conventional heat sources look prehistoric.
However, it is not uncommon in more seasonal climates for the average solar production to exceed the average energy consumption across the year, while the reality is that summer is characterized by overproduction and winter requires consistent top-ups from the grid. Adding a small wind turbine is a challenge from a charge controller perspective (you can’t just plug into an EG4) but it can really address those short, cloudy days with high consumption.
This is really interesting, I wish they had more details.
I do too. It seems their source is the architectural firm which doesn’t provide many details at this point.
The home is situated on the site of an old farmer’s barn
Did they remodel the barn, or is this new construction on former agricultural land? If it’s a remodel, I need a lot more evidence that a barn can go from a drafty storage space to an energy effiecient livable space.
i feel like even if it’s a “remodel” that’s a very ship of theseus situation, barns are basically just 4 walls and a roof to begin with so by the time you’ve added the things necessary to make it a living space the whole thing is 90% new anyways.
It sounds like it’s a new construction on former agricultural land to me.
