The energy efficient home with free plans to download
The city administration of Phoenix, Arizona, which is the fifth largest city in the United States, was looking for a way to address the need for a sustainable architecture and easily accessible to citizens.
With a roadmap designed to completely transform the city into zero carbon emissions and zero waste. Promoting energy efficient construction falls within the sustainability objectives set by the city.
The city, in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects created a competition for the design of the sustainable house perfect. The contest «Sustainable Home Design«.
The aim of the contest was to get a near zero energy housing with projects that had to be evaluated by the HERS (US National Standard by which the energy performance and efficiency of a home is measured). The contest called for a HERS rating of 30 (The Lower, the More Efficient the Home), which is 70% lower than most homes.
The winners of the competition were the architecture studio Marlene Imirzian & Associates Architects, with the project HOME NZ. A low-cost house consisting of a ground floor that houses three bedrooms and an impressive energy rating in HERS of zero.
From here, the city of Phoenix has made available free to download the free energy efficient house plans HOME NZ encouraging everyone to build greener homes.
The housing project has a ground floor where all the rooms are housed. Three bedrooms and three bathrooms, living room, kitchen and attached garage with a pure line design that is really worth noting.
The single-family home uses simple shapes that open up to the surrounding landscape. Large windows and a generously sized front porch are remarkable elements that improve the link between the garden and the interior of the house.
In addition, the design of the house is "flexible", that is, suitable to be built in the style of semi-detached houses …
With a simple action, we have achieved that everyone has access to an architectural project that really adds value to the population and the environment
Remember two articles of interest and that can add value and help you in our projects:
- 28 Green House Plans to Design Homes
- Bioclimatic houses 38 constructive solutions
According to the US Department of Energy… "Most new-build houses have a HERS index of 100, while the average for second-hand houses is reaching 130, even higher."
The HOME NZ project, whose development has also been thinking about the internationalization of the project, illustrates the importance of considering energy costs - from the size of the batteries to the solar panels - and sustainability aspects throughout the design process. .
According to the study… "Instead of spending a lot of money on high-efficiency equipment and renewable energy systems, in the beginning, it is much better to spend efforts and resources on bioclimatic design strategies aimed at limiting energy needs in the normal operation of homes.".
From our point of view and, although the plans are in English, this is a project that provides detailed and quality information, showing different techniques to optimize energy efficiency in the homeWithout detracting from the fact that the design of the house is very attractive compared to other projects that we have come across with similar characteristics.
We can access to download the plans from HERE. You have to fill in the form that appears with Name + Surname + Email + Purpose download plans.
Afterwards, a window will appear to be able to download two files; The first is a general summary of the house and some applied energy efficiency techniques, and the second (Due to the size of the file, it takes a while to download), finding all the detailed plans; from foundations, walls, roofs, technical construction details, etc.
Also from the page of the winning architecture studio itself there are some interesting infographics. And as a complement, from this article we explain in detail how to find more than 500 free autocad blocks to download.
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