Copenhagen,
20
October
2011
|
00:00
Europe/Copenhagen

VELUX Maison Air et Lumiére launched


The completed VELUX Maison Air et Lumière was unveiled today at an opening ceremony in the Paris Commune, Verrières Le Buisson.

The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, the Mayor of Verrières Le Buisson and the project partners.

The unique feature of the house lies in the intelligent use of the pitched roof to combine well-being and energy efficiency. The roof has a variety of intelligent pitches, increasing its ability to harvest sunlight and contribute actively to the energy performance of the house. The orientations and inclines have been chosen and calculated to optimise the yield from the thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic tiles. The roof becomes a fifth active facade, regulating the indoor climate and optimising the admission of light and air, as well as being an aesthetic architectural feature. Because it uses renewable energy, Maison Air et Lumière is energy positive – producing more than it consumes – and CO2 neutral.

The architectural interplay of the roof pitches brings the maximum amount of light into the house from above through the clever combination of the different-sized roof windows in each room providing a large area of glazing.

The different roof pitches allow the interior of the house to be arranged in a variety of spaces, using intermediary levels to create individual or communal living areas. Routes through and around the house have been carefully thought out to cater for people with restricted mobility.

Maison Air et Lumière is based on a modular architectural concept of the pitched roof. The modules can be combined as desired. The house can be adapted to suit different geographical, climatic, urban and budgetary situations while still upholding the principles of comfortable living and energy performance. Looking at the type and number of modules alone, one could imagine designing small or big houses, single houses or urban estates, and homes for the city or the country to the same principles. The interior spaces can be adapted according to needs, desires and changes in family life.

"This house has been built with the support of partners who are committed to and aware of the challenges of ensuring a comfortable living environment in positive-energy buildings. The house will be a pleasant living environment – one that people want to live in – thanks to the quality of its space, natural light and location. Ultimately, the best compliment we could pay to all this technology is to make it so discreet and invisible that people get back in touch with the fundamentals – air and natural light," says Michel Langrand, General Manager of VELUX France.

Maison Air et Lumière will now be open to the industry for six months, before becoming the subject of post-occupancy evaluation for one year. The results will be fed back to the industry to help influence future positive-energy building design.

Maison Air et Lumière is the final experiment in a series of six buildings that make up the Model Home 2020 project.

The house was designed by Nomade Architectes and developed in cooperation with the Cardonnel Ingénierie, E.T.H.A. and industrial partners Saint-Gobain, Aldes, Umicore, Somfy and Eternit. WindowMaster and Sonnenkraft supplied products for the house.

Read more about Maison Air et Lumière at: http://www.velux.com/sustainable_living/model_home_2020/maison_air_et_lumiere

About Model Home 2020
Model Home 2020 is an experiment launched by the VELUX Group as part of our strategy to take an active part in developing sustainable buildings for the future. It is our vision of how future buildings can be both climate-neutral and comfortable and attractive places to live in through daylight and fresh air. The project is in full accordance with the next generation of design principles frequently referred to as 'active house' (www.activehouse.org). The objective is to achieve a balance between energy efficiency and optimal indoor climate with a building that dynamically adjusts to its surroundings and yet is climate-neutral.

Model Home 2020 comprises six demonstration projects. The two experiments in Denmark were built in a partnership between the VELUX Group and VELFAC. Each of the Model Home projects was implemented in close cooperation with local and regional partners, suppliers, architects, engineers and researchers.

In the VELUX Group, we believe that one experiment is better than a thousand expert views. Each building must reflect and respond to the different climatic, cultural and architectural conditions of the countries in which they are built. The houses will be open to the public for 6-12 months after completion and then sold. Each house will be monitored during occupancy to learn how the experiments turn out in real-life conditions. The houses in Denmark – Home for Life in Aarhus and Green Lighthouse in Copenhagen – have been in use for two years, those in Germany and Austria opened in 2010 and those in UK and France opened in 2011.