Zero House: nearly zero energy rural house reconstruction

This village project in the suburbs of Beijing focuses on the problem of indigenous resident loss in rural areas of China. The overall goal is to improve residential comfortableness and realize energy self-sufficiency by means of green transformation, to introduce functions such as creative office, and to realize function conversion and rural revival.
The main goal of the project is to explore the technical possibilities and construction realizability of assembled nearly zero energy rural house reconstruction. The approach to this goal is to respond to rural ecology and cold climate in a targeted manner, to use the technical strategy of passive house to achieve minimum energy requirement, and to combine multiple new solar energy utilization methods to achieve nearly zero energy building. Prefabricated modules are used for the added residential part, and are assembled on site.

1. Process – Nearly zero energy building in rural area combining ultra low energy consumption with modular assembly.
The building has improved the nearly zero energy building space system that is suitable for the single-story courtyard layout. The courtyard divides the building into three parts of simple shapes, and air-tightness units are connected with passive house and stairwell wind tower to enhance heat radiation in winter and guide the natural ventilation in transitional seasons. The sloping roof uses skylights to achieve natural lighting and uses photovoltaic tiles to provide electric energy.

2. Planet -- Reducing ecological impact and realizing carbon neutral building with net zero energy consumption.
The rural ecology and the tall poplars on the north and east sides of the plot are kept, and a ladder shaped vegetable garden is designed in combination with the existing poplars and the green space at the village entrance. Based on the ecological functions, the three courtyards are defined as different themed courtyards, respectively water courtyard, solar courtyard and zero carbon garden decorated with waste. A greenhouse is set in the south courtyard, where a fish and vegetable symbiosis system composed of vertical hydroponic plants is arranged.

3. Place – Rural building integrating red brick local context and regional features.
The building uses regional materials and a brick-wood structure system, and tries passive house structures with different enclosure systems such as brick-wood system, red brick exterior wall is used to form a sandwich thermal insulation system,so that the facade shows the traditional rural architectural style.