The project is a 2-storey (no basement) post and beam residential cottage. The house sits on a site overlooking Tatamagouche Bay on the south shore of the Malagash peninsula in Nova Scotia. The house design comprises a single bedroom with a den that will accommodate a Murphy bed for visiting guests. The main floor of the house consists primarily of an open plan kitchen, dining and living areas. The upper floor contains the private areas, including bedroom, main bathroom and walk-in closet.The project utilizes the principles of passive house design through the integration of a combination of building features, including a highly insulated airtight building envelope, to reduce the need for mechanical cooling and heating. The east-west orientation of the house with larger windows on the south and east facing façade, besides allowing picturesque views of the bay, provides direct solar gain during the heating season. Large overhangs and/or shading devices control heat gain in summer and allow solar gain in winter.High thermal mass to reduce the problem of diurnal temperature swings for both the heating and cooling seasons is provided by a large centrally located full height interior concrete wall, exposed interior retaining wall foundation, insulated slab-on-grade ground floor and concrete topped second floor. The house incorporates high-performance fibreglass windows with extremely low U-values. The south facing insulated glass units have a high solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) in order to permit passive solar energy to enter the house while preventing it from escaping. The windows are strategically located to facilitate natural ventilation and to reduce the need for daytime artificial lighting. Additional daylighting is provided through north-facing clerestory windows located in a bump-out at the roof. These windows utilize natural ventilation and thermal chimney techniques for creating a natural convection loop to provide cooling during summer months. There is no mechanical cooling in the house.To help maintain healthy indoor air quality the house incorporates low-VOC materials and utilizes a ground-air heat exchange system located in an earth-berm on the north side of the house. The ground-air heat exchange system is used to provide a continuous supply of tempered fresh air through a heat-recovery ventilator. Fresh air, drawn through an underground network of pipes, is either pre-heated in winter or pre-cooled in summer by way of an energy exchange with the ground. At a depth of 1.5 metres the ground is a constant 8-12°C. The pipes in the ground-air heat exchanger from REHAU utilize an anti-microbial inner layer. This house utilizes an HRV with an integral 100% summer bypass that moves the exhaust air past the heat exchanger and thus prevents the supply air, which in summer is cooled down by the ground-air heat exchange system, from being re-heated by the warm exhaust air.The main source of supplemental heat for the house is a wood-burning stove / fireplace with direct air intake. Water is available through an on-site well, and domestic hot water is provided through a time of use (TOU) electric hot water tank. A highly efficient airtight building envelope design with increased insulation levels consists primarily of structural insulated panels for walls and roof. The SIPs are wrapped with a vapor permeable membrane air barrier for added air tightness and to protect them from incidental water penetration. To ensure the building envelope is able to dry out in two directions, no vapour barrier has been included in the design of the walls and roof. Additional rigid insulation is placed over the vapor permeable membrane / air barrier to increase the insulation levels of the wall. The exterior walls are clad primarily in a locally sourced wood with some metal siding using a rain-screen system, which permits effective drying of the cladding from both sides while eliminating the possibility of solar driven inward moisture flow. Effective water and vapour management will increase the life span of the materials that comprise the building envelope and reduce and/or eliminate the chances of fungal growth on or within the walls and roof, thus improving the overall indoor air quality of the house.The design includes a future renewable energy strategy utilizing a PV-array and a wind turbine to bring the net energy requirement for the house to near zero. The ground-air heat exchange system was selected as the initial renewable energy strategy to be installed, with the installation of photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine given to a future phase.