NowtHaus: Comfort by Design, Not Kit
Can we design an office without heating or cooling? NowtHaus asks how much technology a good office actually needs, and how much of the work can be done by the architecture itself.
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Bennetts Associates
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Ramboll
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CPC Project Services
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More With Less: NowtHaus Summary
Further Information
Buildings have become increasingly dependent on mechanical systems. Heating, cooling and ventilation provide tightly controlled internal conditions, but at a cost: more plant, more distribution, more upfront carbon, more maintenance and more things to replace.
NowtHaus takes its name from the Yorkshire word ‘nowt’, meaning nothing. With a nod to Reyner Banham’s The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, it captures the idea of a building that is Naturally Operated and Well Tempered. The proposition is simple: how much building technology can we remove if the architecture itself does more of the work?
Developed by Bennetts Associates with Ramboll (building physics) and CPC (costs), the study tests the proposition through the familiar and relatively predictable form of the standard office. Rather than starting with systems and asking how efficiently they can operate, it asks what conditions people need to feel comfortable and whether that can be provided by the passive fabric alone.
Starting with Comfort, not Systems
In winter, if peak heating demand can be reduced below around 5 W/m², normal internal gains can provide much of the heat that a well-occupied office needs. In summer, solar control, natural ventilation, thermal mass and adaptive comfort can replace much of the work normally undertaken by mechanical cooling.
Removing conventional HVAC also strips out plant, risers, ductwork, controls and interfaces. Our work suggests that a better-performing façade might add around 5% to construction cost, while removing conventional HVAC could save 15 – 20%. The building becomes simpler to design and construct, as well as to operate, maintain and adapt.
It also changes where money is spent. Instead of investing in transient equipment that will be replaced, upgraded or removed during the life of the building, more can be directed towards permanent fabric: better insulation, effective solar control, robust openings and the thermal mass that allows the building to moderate its internal environment.
Designing for Reinforcement
As we have tested the proposition with clients and developers, the conversation has shifted from ‘is this possible?’ to ‘what would it take to deliver?’ This has led us to look more closely at resilience and how a NowtHaus office might respond as conditions, occupiers and expectations change.
A high-performance office might begin with very little, while being designed from the outset to accept additional systems where they become necessary. Improvements in technology make this increasingly plausible. Systems that once depended on central plant and extensive distribution can become smaller, local and modular, closer to replaceable equipment than permanent infrastructure. They can be added where needed, replaced as technology improves and removed when no longer required. Nothing is embedded, and everything is upgradable, reversible and removable.
More With Less
NowtHaus sits within our wider More With Less work, which looks at how buildings might be simplified by questioning what has become standard and distinguishing what is essential from what is habitual. Lower carbon and capital cost are part of this, but so are simpler design, easier coordination and reduced maintenance complexity over the life of the building.
NowtHaus has started with environmental systems. We are now interested in where that same approach might take us next in design, procurement and maintenance.
For further information see our More With Less: NowtHaus Summary.