Active house UK

In April 2022, the UK chapter of Active House was launched, just over ten years after the Active House concept came into being. What is Active House and why should it be considered ? Below is an interview with the Active House UK Chair, Professor Steve Scaysbrook FCIAT.

[edit] What is Active House?

Active House is a vision for designing buildings holistically that looks beyond just energy performance and puts residents’ health and wellbeing - as well as the environment - at the core. This means considering indoor comfort aspects or indoor environment quality (IEQ) which considers factors like air quality, natural lighting, acoustics and thermal comfort, as well as energy consumption.

Recently, Active House has expanded to include freshwater consumption and embodied carbon. It can be used for both residential and commercial buildings.

[edit] Why is Active House important?

We spend around 90% of our time indoors, and over the past few years with the COVID-19 pandemic, this has been more acutely felt. There is rightly a focus on the energy performance of buildings as we seek to tackle climate change, but it is important that we consider other aspects too. We should endeavour to design houses that are not only non-detrimental to our health and wellbeing, but also enhance it.

[edit] How do you go about designing an Active House?

The Active House approach is set out in two guides. The Active House Vision outlines the principles for Active House and why they are important, and then the Active House Specifications look at the specific criterion, both quantitative and qualitative for the design and assessment stages. These guides are both freely available and provide a great starting point for when having a discussion with a client about their aspirations. You can apply Active House to new builds and to renovations.

[edit] Active House compared to designing to current building regulations?

At the heart of an Active House is what we call the radar, containing nine parameters. This is divided into three sections. Comfort, which covers daylight, thermal environment and acoustics; energy, which includes, energy demand, energy supply and primary energy performance and then environment, which is for environmental load, freshwater consumption and sustainable construction. There is a much more holistic approach than just building to the minimum legal requirements.

[edit] How will you know if a building is an Active House?

Following the design or build phase, the building is then scored (1 to 4) against each criterion. Then, using a special software tool. a radar chart can be generated which shows this performance. You can also include an additional benchmark in the radar which illustrates, for example, how it would look if just built to legal minimums. Even if a building has not been designed expressly to the Active House Specification, it is still possible to produce a radar and see how it performs and where improvements might be made, provided you have access to the necessary data.

[edit] Is there any form of validation for an Active House?

Once a building is finished, you can also apply for third party verification and receive an Active House label. Although it is not a pass or fail as such (although there are minimum requirements to be awarded the label) the radar allows you to show how well a building performs against the Active House Specification. This may vary between the needs and wishes of each client, but as practitioners we have the opportunity, using the Active House Vision, to advise on the importance of all these aspects.

An example of an Active House Radar

[edit] Why did you launch Active House in the UK?

The global Active House Alliance is non-for-profit organisation and celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2021. It has really taken off in a number of countries including the Netherlands, China, Ukraine, Italy and Canada, and I think there is a huge appetite for it in the UK. The more Active Houses that are built in the UK then it will be beneficial for people and the planet. There is currently no holistic design specification which is so readily accessible for designers, specifiers and builders and so Active House can fill that gap.

[edit] How can members find out more or get involved?

If you would like to join Active House UK then please visit the website to get in touch. You can also freely download the Active House Specification and Vision from the UK or global website.

Global Active House Alliance: ActiveHouse.info Active House UK: ActiveHouseUK.org

This article appears in the CIAT AT Journal Issue number 142, in the Summer 2022 based on an interview with the Active House UK Chair, Professor Steve Scaysbrook FCIAT.

--CIAT

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• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
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