Home on the Garraf Massif. Bioclimatic strategies for a zero-consumption dwelling

The House on the Garraf Massif is a dwelling designed to be zero-consumption and have a healthy indoor environment. It is developed in a compact square plan of 90 square meters, with the advantage of avoiding heat loss through the facades but also the disadvantage of not allowing direct southern sunlight into the back rooms

Therefore, Slow Studio's designers envision a central space that captures light and heat, designed in the form of a covered atrium with southern openings in the part that rises above the roof. Thus the rooms of the House on the Garraf Massif are organized around this bioclimatic atrium: a double-height central space that accumulates heat thanks to an upper opening to the south and allows rooms in the northern zone to be tempered and generate cross-ventilation

In this way, the atrium generates a second façade that allows solar gain and warms the air that will be used to benefit the ventilation of the house. The bioclimatic atrium is designed to have multiple functions: it can be used as an extra living room, dining room, or simply as a free access space to the sleeping area. In addition, clients specifically request Slow Studio to have a north-facing view; to this end, the atrium has a small loft accessible by a removable library-type staircase that can be moved or hidden when not needed

The building system is based on a double wall, made of stone internally and brick externally, with thermal insulation in between. In the access area, the exposed brick wall generates a semi-open lattice that serves as a distinctive element of the passive house. Solar protection of the openings is provided by external textile blinds

A biomass, pellet-fired boiler provides domestic hot water and for winter heating, which operates through a conventional radiator system. Passive house air is recirculated through the central atrium by fans that introduce it from the highest point of the gallery and whose extraction is in the wet areas of the bathrooms and kitchen