ZEB Pilot House

THE SELF-SUFFICIENT HOUSE

Built to serve as an example of a sustainable work of architecture, enabling students and professionals to visit and thus receive knowledge about smart building techniques  and about methodologies for future housing with integrated sustainable solutions, the ZEB (Zero Energy Building) Pilot House is located in Larvik, in the south of Norway, and is the result of a partnership between architecture practice Snøhetta and the Research Centre of Buildings with Zero Carbon Emissions, both from this Nordic land.
Within the 220-sqm area of the building, carbon dioxide emissions are nil, while energy is produced by solar cells and collectors (placed on the roof of the house) and energy wells in the ground, enough to provide the daily energy needs of a family, to heat a swimming pool and to charge an electric car for a year.
But it’s not just transformation techniques of natural resources into power that make this house a paradigm of self-sufficient building construction. The architectural design is also responsible for making the very most of using light and heat in the building’s interior.

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Featured in ROOF 3

Text: Paula Monteiro
Photos: Paal-André Schwital

Snøhetta

ZEB