ECO360: A Testament to Sustainable Living

Joseph Cory's Award-Winning Design Sets a New Standard for Green Homes

The ECO360 project, despite its small scale, required spatial complexity. The house's geometry uses minimal volume, optimal orientation regarding the view and the sun, and an appropriate glass percentage to gain heat loads from incoming sun rays during winter and to prevent direct sun penetration during summer. The building envelope was designed to minimize summer cooling load, and the simulations during the design phase guaranteed the best results in real life.

The home's unique properties lie in its sustainability. The client wanted a home that could demonstrate, highlight, and set an example of what could be done to build a home based on ecological principles. The house reveals the ideas of sustainability with more than fifty green design features.

The ECO360 was realized through a variety of technologies and materials. These include passive design, geometrical optimization, compact design, a 16.2 KWP PV system for energy independence, solar optimizers, natural ventilation, ventilated facades, shaded terraces, thermal performance, and a smart house system with several sensor types. Local materials such as Ytong blocks with an r value of 2.2, double glazing with Low E, LED lights, FSC certified wood parquet, high durability facade and deck made from renewable bamboo fibers and recycled plastic were used.

The 250 square meter house has 4 bedrooms and allows 75% of the site's water to be discharged slowly into the soil. It produces 2 times the energy it demands. The project started in 2016 and finished in 2018.

The ECO360 faced a unique challenge: designing a passive house where the main facade is pointing to the south, while in this case the view was to the west. This is harder to control with passive design techniques and unique geometrical optimization was needed. Despite this, the ECO360 is a single-family home that is an Energy Positive example of green design. The house reveals the ideas of sustainability with more than fifty green design features.

The Eco360's design and performance earned it the Silver A' Architecture, Building and Structure Design Award in 2019. This prestigious award is given to top-of-the-line, creative, and professionally remarkable designs that illustrate outstanding expertise and innovation. These designs, admired for their strong technical characteristics and splendid artistic skill, showcase a remarkable level of excellence and introduce positive feelings, amazement, and wonder.