House
Imber Akse House is the realization of our dream home. A home that looks at living, sustainability and urbanism in a holistic perspective. We’ve designed this site to engage as many people in the process of designing and building this sustainable home as possible — so that we might encourage others to take the same steps toward positive change and get there with a little more ease.
Imber Akse House is the home to be of Leslie Akse and Barry Imber, long time Burlington residents and owners of 15 year old design and web firms in downtown Burlington. The house project reflects our philosophies on the environment, sustainability and green living.
We hope you will visit the site often to follow the design through development of the home, learn about the technologies and ideas involved and hopefully find the information helpful or perhaps inspiring. Please feel free to leave comments and ask questions as we’ll do our best to remain engaged through the stresses of juggling work, family and the building process.
The Site
Located in the old downtown of Burlington Ontario Canada, Imber Akse House will sit on a large well treed suburban lot. This lot is wonderfully unique in not only it’s 1/4 acre size but in the green space that surrounds the property by way of the neighbouring properties and a passive municipal alley. Most of the trees and bushes have been allowed to mature without concern for replacement by manicured gardens or sculptural tree species. Consequently, the property is well shaded and diverse in urban wildlife.
The lot front faces south west providing almost constant summer sun exposure uninterrupted by the single story home to the south.
The Look
Thankfully we both love Modern Design and Architecture. Consequently it had long been our dream to one day build or find a modern home that would suit our lifestyles. Having lived in the downtown for the better part of our lives and within blocks of the site for the last 12 years, Leslie and I were also both in love with the situation and architectural diversity in of the area. We enjoyed seeing so many periods of homes exemplified while on nightly walks and believed that adding a current or at least somewhat reflective modern home in the area would be a natural evolution proving the area wasn’t deadened by the romantic period of building that is currently massively popular in Canada. In fact, it was the flat roof nature of the existing structures on the property that had always attracted us to it. That being said, it wasn’t our goal to be modern for modern sake, and we felt that there could be a way of adopting modern retro architectural cues and combine them with our current eye for modern to achieve a fit in the context of modern versus traditional in the neighbourhood.
So when considering the initial aesthetic design for the home, Leslie and I looked for visual and material cues in the neighbouring 300+ homes that we could utilize to make it feel itself at home. After all, despite our love for modern, it had to feel like a place to live. Now at this point, the design uses local stone and board siding similar in style to the area, as well as a natural colour set that brings the facade into the character of the street.
The Roof
The flat roof, well, it was already there for 40+ years so it was a natural too. So because this style existed in the majority of the property and the accessory buildings were worthy of saving, we decided to continue this influence. More importantly, the flat roof provides the ability to keep the house low and reduced in its mass both literally and as it’s perceived from the street so that we can achieve an averaging of heights between the tall 3 story house to the North and the short 1 story to the south. The flat roof provides the ability to move the 2nd story mass back from the street to the middle of the structure to further diminish the massing of the home. Also the flat roof allows for deep overhangs or eaves that on a pitched roof would require more engineering and higher roof heights due to pitch. Generous roof overhangs are reflective of the bungalow style era of homes in the core and give a sleepy feel to the home while also providing a responsible passive solar mechanism shading in summer and allowing light access in the winter.
The Plan
Overview
+ 3300 sq.ft.
+ 2 floors, 4 bedrooms plus in-law suite
+ flat roof
+ Lot size 72′ x 135′
If you’ve read our philosophies on how design impacts our world, sustainability and being green then you’ll guess that the interior concepts of the home very important to us and were given much attention.
Since we had the opportunity to start from scratch in designing a home, within limits, we stared with the idea that the function of the house was of utmost importance and would ultimately be allowed to dictate the look and shape of the home. We believed we wouldn’t feel obligated to fill a box with rooms and false uses, rather, we would allow the real functions of rooms and the shape and restrictions of the lot to decide on the shape of the exterior walls.
Following this we detailed the needs of the users — sleep, quiet time, entertaining, eating, family, utilities — and organized these functions in a way to create the most amount of efficiency in spacial and energy use and the least amount of negative collisions of uses. The goal was to create a social family oriented space that was effortlessly efficient while also being comfortable with areas of escape. We believe you can combine domestic realities such as cooking with laundry, laundry and entertaining, or providing space for individual pursuits while in a social, non isolating environment. This only takes thought. The solution was to design the plan in zones; quiet for sleep and study, entertaining for family and friends, and utility for cooking, bath and laundry. These three zones would be separated by the main walls with the most sound insulative properties but would have passageways that when open should feel like natural flow throughs but while closed, look artistic and non confining.
The goal of the home was also to provide the users with constant natural light and a connection to the outdoors. Not only is this good for the soul, we believe it simply makes the home seem effortless, less mechanical and detached from the world. Many that have experienced a cottage have enjoyed the freedom that comes with them. You seamlessly step from outside to inside and barely notice, the time spent inside is merely an extension of the outdoor experience and ultimately a part the the whole enjoyment of being “North”. Our hope was to design this back in to the home by removing barriers to this feeling — like switching on lights, opening doors, loosing orientation to the outside, feeling off the ground, taking off your flip flops — subtleties. To achieve this we needed to maintain sight lines to the outside with as much light as possible by way of well placed regular and clearstory windows. Also we concentrated on blurring the defining edges between the outside and inside by continuing material between, thereby diminishing the impact of doors and windows as a border and accentuating them as art that frames the natural exterior or nighttime interior.
The design in a general sense aims to utilize the following ideas and systems:
Design for Health
+ healthy and pleasurable living environment: quiet, open air, bright, connected to nature and natural materials
+ good sleeping: quiet – noisy functions and utilities located as far away as possible, dark at night
+ low dust: solid floors without carpeting don’t hold dust and dirt, heating system doesn’t blow air or dust, air conditioning and air circulation utilizes ceiling level vents which don’t disturb floor dust
+ low VOCs: materials are low or no VOC and HVAC system ensures good air exchange for cleaner air free of cooking or inhabitant pollutants
+ low mold: materials and systems discourage mold growth through humidity control, insulation that is inorganic and doesn’t collect organics
Energy and Resource Use Design
+ design to utilize material or resources on site such as keeping garage and poolhouse
+ re-use on site materials where possible including recovering materials from existing home; wood, stone, vegetation
+ honest materials that use little energy to produce
+ layout designed to use less grid energy to operate and personal energy to work within
+ natural light throughout the home
+ light coloured paints reflect light and energy
+ energy source assistance from ground and solar
+ water collection system to use rain water for irrigation and possible future greywater supply- plumbed for future greywater re-use
+ roof system of light coloured material (TPO) and “green roof” material combined to reduce urban heat effect and also heat load on house
+ design to include possible future energy sources or conservation systems as “roughed in and ready” so that less work will be required for integration such as wiring for solar, plumbing for greywater reclamation
+ design landscaping to be energy and resource conservative such as drought resistant local species that require little or no maintenance, little to no water and and infrequent to no replacement
Sustainable Design
+ features: systems and ideas that will become the norm
+ materials: material and labour locally sourced where possible, chosen for their durability and energy conservative nature over cost encouraging sustainable practices and supporting local economy
+ relevance to future users: functions, materials, finishes can all be added to, not subtracted and redone making the house more useful to our future needs and that of others
Green Design & Build
An overused ubiquitous term but below is a list of “Green” features in the home that aim to fulfill the definition without being dogmatic.
+ low VOC materials such as sealers, paints, structural fibre boards (MDF), insulation, finishes
+ mold resistant materials such as blown insulation, concrete, stone
+ TPO or other light roof surface and possibly a green roof section which reduces the urban heat effect and also reduces heat gain on the structure thereby reducing energy consumption – also lasting longer with fewer leaks and associated issues
+ green roof section which will reduce water run-off and consume carbons while also providing habitat for insects and animals
+ roof water run-off collection cistern to feed irrigation reducing load on city services while also reducing storm water run-off into lake/city storm water system+ porous or water permeable areas surrounding house to allow water to return to water table instead of city sewer system
+ generous roof overhangs to reduce light and heat gain in and on structure reducing energy load
+ passive solar design features such as concrete and stone interior massing to take advantage of solar heat gain in winter months
+ geo-thermal heat source and pump feeding radiant in floor hydronic system which is ultra efficient, low energy load to operate and also healthier on the air in the home – no forced dry dusty air is created
+ high efficient HVAC system cycles air through the home removing dust and moisture
+ clerestory windows on the main floor at the 12′ high level provide ample daylighting to reduce energy use from artificial lighting while also allowing hot air to escape when opened; this creates a low pressure zone on the floor and draws air in the house through generous openings (doors and window) along the east west axis that is also the primary wind direction in summer
+ the treed front lawn acts as a natural cooler for the above system adding moisture to the warm air
+ the system also provides fresh air using low tech earth tubes or vents that draw air in through the ground and foundation concrete – warming or cooling the in-flowing air to approximately near basement temperature before it is mixed with interior air – warm in winter, cool in summer
+ all windows are double low E — Energy Star rated
+ all appliances and HVAC will be EnerGuide top percentile rated
+ utilities within the home will be situated for best efficiency with regard to high use areas and energy travel – no long spans of hot water
+ isolated hot water needs will be supplied by instant hot solutions
+ pool will be heated by geothermal and use a salt water system for filtering/cleaning
+ concrete floors reduce the need for chemical finishes, waxes or cleaning
+ light coloured interior walls reduce the need for artificial lighting while also reducing heat gain and are also easier to achieve low VOC as VOCs are generally in the pigments
+ all lighting will be on dimmers and will utilize timers/sensors in high use areas
+ all lighting will be compact florescent (CF), Light Emitting Diodes (LED) or at least Halogen reducing energy consumption while also providing longer product life+ floor plan allows good cross breeze for passive cooling and air flow
+ floor plan situates areas of various uses into logical zones such as quiet, entertaining and loud utility so that they don’t interfere with each other – thereby improving the enjoyment of the environment and reducing the need for sound reducing finishes or alterations