WaterShed’s design includes passive and active strategies to create efficient methods of lighting and air circulation, maintaining a comfortable and attractive living environment with minimal energy consumption.
WaterShed’s windows and doors connect to its outdoor spaces, providing ample opportunities for natural cross-ventilation. Doors and windows on all orientations of the house allow a resident to capture different seasonal breezes.
The fenestration and doors provide a connection to the exterior by extending the living space onto the adjacent decks, and the bathroom that bridges the wetlands has floor-to-ceiling glass to provide a visual and experiential connection to the wetlands. Strategically placed windows and doors, along with translucent clerestories along the north and south facades, allow for ample amounts of natural lighting to enter WaterShed during the day. The high-efficiency doors and windows manufactured by Loewen have U-factors of .30 to .31 and solar heat gain coefficient values ranging from .17 to .25, allowing abundant daylight to enter WaterShed while minimizing heat gain from solar exposure. Similarly, the translucent clerestory wall panel system from Major Industries, with a U-factor of .22, provides a source of diffuse illumination along the length of each module without the same energy consequences as transparent glazing.
At night, two highly efficient LED cable track light systems at the lower edge of each sloped roof, direct light upward. LED tape at the base of the translucent wall panels cause the panels to glow and reflect light. By illuminating the interior ceiling plane and the clerestory, the house glows on the interior and from the exterior. Recessed LED down lights in the bathroom highlight the central constructed wetlands, themselves lit by seven- and ten watt LED fixtures. The use of exterior fixtures in the wetlands highlights the path of water that is received, processed, and released from the house to its environment.
To learn more about energy efficient lighting, please visit this Energy Star page on LED lighting.
To learn more about energy efficient windows and doors, please visit this Energy Star page on windows and doors.