Lights, Camera…
02/08/2019 . Homes
Earlier in the week Channel 4’s Grand Designs film crew visited Hill House Passivhaus to film a segment for the House of The Year Award’s preview later in the year.
The house, which has already received RIBA local and national awards, has made it on to the longlist for the annual award which has replaced the Manser Medal of previous years. Former winners have included Richard Murphy Architects and Macdonald Wright and Maxwell. Architect and client, Charles Meloy, was insistent that the Passivhaus credentials of the house were featured prominently. Charles asked APE’s director, Dan Gibbons, to help explain the intricacies of the scheme to the film crew.
Despite a cool breeze off the South coast, the summer sun was bathing the house in a photogenic light that will hopefully boost Charles’ chance of bringing home another award. The dappled shade off the surrounding woodland helped to further emphasise how crucial it was that APE’s Passivhaus calculations plotted the positions of all nearby trees to assess the impact on crucial solar gains. Charles and his family had already been interviewed at length by the time Dan arrived at the house but there was still enough light in the day for a whistle-stop run through of the collaborative design process which has resulted in an equally simple and complex building.