"The C3 house occupies a site in a highly controlled and restricted outstanding natural landscape zone on the Southern Lakes region of New Zealand. Planning controls in this area require buildings to have "less than minor" visual impact on the landscape from surrounding public open space. Some of the controls are: 4.5 meter height limit, a pre determined building platform, recessive colours and textures, limited earthworks and vegetation disturbance.The client, has developed a site specific sustainable house rating tool that exceeds existing tools available in New Zealand. Land purchasers are required to meet a minimum rating on this tool. This project, however, strives to reach the maximum score and achieve triple carbon-zero status: zero carbon emissions operational; zero carbon emissions total material manufacture and zero waste at the end of its lifecycle. The project has succeeded at this challenge.The house is constructed of local stone (Gabion Baskets), local renewable timber and rammed earth with limited use of steel cement and glass. The overall embodied carbon is negative. The energy consumption is kept extremely low by a hugely efficient envelope and a ground-source heat pump together with low energy use lighting and appliances. The entire building can be recycled."
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