Apart from the green projects, featured are great gardens and inspirational interiors. Many of the exhibits (including the hoses) will go on sale at the end of the event.
Pictured is the Flower House by A + J BURRIDGE. Although it looks stunning, I cannot see any gutters, can you? It is a timber panel building with wood fibre insulation. It’s energy usage is 11.4kWh per sq-ft and the predicted annual heating cost is £242. It is not the greenest house on display. The John Gilbert Architect’s Timber House boasts the annual heating cost as low as £73.
The critics say that this exhibition is as bad as any large Expo – it takes huge amounts of energy to transport, assemble and disassemble the green homes. On the other hand, an event like this will probably convert a good few hundreds of people; and the amount of green homes built after the show might potentially offset the energy that has gone into organizing the Scotland’s Housing Expo. You gotta raise the awareness even if it seems an exaggeration at first.
If you fancy an inspirational trip to Scotland, check their website for bookings. The event is on till the end of August. Alas, I cannot make it this time but I’d like to hear from people who’d visited the show.
I’m glad you like the design. Green architecture has a bit of a reputation for being po-faced and we were keen to show that it should be enjoyable and life affirming. The gutters are within the slope of the roof and from this angle are concealed and were designed as part of a rainwater harvesting system (not currently installed). The reported running costs for the houses at the Expo are a big improvement on usual levels but vary widely. This is partly due to the fact that the homes vary in size – from a 50sqm flat to 150sqm house – and partly because fuel costs have been calculated at different rates. The more important figure is the energy performance figure where The Flower House is expected to use 123kW/sqm compared with 122kWh/sqm for the much smaller Timber House. The Flower House is a prototype and we are hoping to reproduce similar houses across the country and would be happy to hear from anyone interested in building one.
Oh, that’s where the gutter is! I thought it’s been simply omitted from the rendering 🙂 Well, in that case it’s a great idea. Gutters and pipes don’t really add any value to the house’s design, no matter how nice and shiny they are. I think houses like yours will eventually change the public perception because some people still think that “green houses” is a synonym of “ugly houses”, and they can clearly see, looking at the Flower House, that it is not the case.
Hi – I just wanted to mention that the homes will not be disassembled after this event – they are for sale.
I’m sure this short video (shot prior to the Expo opening) will be of interest to your readers as it tell of 100 sustainable homes to be built on a previously derelict site in Inverness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RwhLyriLt4
Emh, wait a minute. Are they staying on the site? And then you’re picking a new site for the Expo 2011?
The Flower House is already for sale http://www.rettie.co.uk/buy_property/view_property/?p=18&reference=EDI100779&price_max=250000&structure_id=221
The Expo houses are staying on site and are for sale and rental. (Agent info is here http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/selling.php)
The other site I referred to is not for a second event, but the hope is that some of the designs will be used for the new project.
I hope this clarifies and sorry for any confusion.