Tower House

The aim of the brief was to find passive strategies in order to design a habitable tower house in London.

Site location: the location of the tower house was really important since we wanted the tower to sit somewhere that receive the greatest amount of sun during winter days.
-Massing model: the shape of the tower is elliptical so we have been able to benefit from the corners and put the windows there. Moreover, we used the terracing strategy to maximise the daylight gain.
-Ventilation: all the windows of the tower are on the same side and the upper window on the opposite side to all the other ones. This strategy created stack effect.
-Heat: we used the energy of a stove situated in the kitchen to heat the clay sofa located in the balcony.
-Symbiosis with the landscape: Visual harmony of the tower with its environment: we created an algae panel to generate a smooth transition from the lake to the tower.
-Material used in the tower: Weaving cork was a way of making the inside of the tower more pleasant and by carving cork we have been able to have a direct connection with the algae panel and with the soft light that would enter through the panel. Earth is a material available on site, this is why we wanted to make the façade of our tower by molding rammed earth. Furthermore, in order to create greenhouse effect we used ETFE instead of glazing. Nonetheless, our foundation is really expensive because of the used technique
which is the pile cap construction.