Living Steel competition - Izbushka

Cherepovets, Russia

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Living Steel competition - Izbushka

Cherepovets, Russia

Firm

Type

Residential › Private House

YEAR

2008

Project concept comes
out of the specific climate of Cherepovets.
The aim is to use maximum solar energy. Outer walls consist of two layers. The
outer layer is made of glass and supporting metal structure. This glass shell lets
the sun get inside the house. The second layer is made of metal structure and partly
of glass (where necessary) and partly of metal sheets.
Project concept is to
use thermal and physical characteristics of metal. Metal worms up and cools
down quickly. Metal Sheets which are placed inside of the outer glass shell are
wormed up by the solar energy. As the metal sheets are placed inside the house
the thermal energy they loose while cooling down stays inside of the house.
Metal sheets are dark colored. This increases the coefficient of the received
solar energy. Between the façade layers are placed curtains (where necessary) providing
shade in summer. It is also possible to use in some places colored (orange, red
or yellow) glass which will provide additional psychological warmness.
Steel columns (which
are placed between outer and inner shells), beams and rafters serve for the main
structure of the house. This enables to avoid using columns inside the house
and gives much more freedom in interior planning design.
The house structure
consists of modular elements. Making the basic elements modular makes them easy
to produce with low prime cost. It is very effective to construct with them conserving
a lot of time. The elements are also easy to displace (if necessary). Based on
the main concept various designs can be made.
For the visual prototype
of the house served the traditional Russian house called izbushka. Although the
total difference between their construction and materials there are a lot of
similarities. Thus these similarities do not make the feeling of artificiality.