René Eco-House
2006
René Vermeren
Guadalest, Alicante
268.11 m2
247,900 euros
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1. Most Important Goals

- Make new formal proposals, based on dynamic composition of walls of high thermal load.

- Perform a high level of housing industrialization. Even the supporting structure is made out of lightweight concrete panels.

- Integrate housing in a protected natural environment. The formal structure of housing provision is inspired by the rock in the environment.

- Experiment with new types of architecture, to allow the housing has a high level of cooling itself only by its architectural design without mechanical devices that consume energy.

2. Architectural Solution

The house has a very simple structure based on 4 wall composition. It has two floors. The ground floor is the sleeping area and the upper, the day area. In turn, the living area consists of three parts. The central area is the distribution of housing, this is the lounge area and the west is the kitchen and study.


The house is staged, following the natural slope of the land and in contact with it there is a transverse gallery, and a series of underground tunnels that generate and store a large bag of fresh air that will travel throughout the house.

3. Eco-friendly materials

1. Foundations and structure.
Double-leaf walls and insulation. The inner leaf is the load-bearing wall panels based lightweight concrete 15 cm. thick. The outer leaf is also built based on lightweight concrete panels of 7 cm. Inside there is a double sheet of hemp insulation layer of 6 cm. and a ventilated air space of 3 cm. The floor is made out of precast lightweight concrete.

2. Exterior finishes
Silicate paint. Tongue and groove boards and battens, Ipe wood, heat treated and dyed with vegetable oils.

3. Interior finishes
Paintings vegetables. Flooring tile porcelain tile. Double doors plywood board, beech plywood, and treated with vegetable oils. Screenprinted tempered glass doors.

4. Cover
Roof garden, with an average thickness of 30 cm. of land. Pitched roof sandwich panel based consists of: top Viroc board (wood chips and cement) of 13 mm, bottom board of birch plywood 13 mm, and internal insulation hemp fiber 10 cm. thick. Based coating with a layer of rubber, and a coating of zinc sheet.

5. Others
Polypropylene water pipes. Polyethylene drainage pipes. Energy-efficient appliances. Silestone kitchen countertops antibacterial. Walls and floors of high performance glass (anti-scratch, slip, easy cleaning, special screen ...). Iroko wood carpentry treated with vegetable oils. Cotton canvas awnings. Shading Ipe hardwood, treated with vegetable oils. All woods used have a certificate of origin with selective logging and ecological treatment (FSC).

4. Highlights Innovations

- Structural system based on prefabricated panels of lightweight concrete. Thus, the maximum use of resources, and decreases the maximum energy consumption in housing construction. Furthermore, each structural component can be recovered, repaired, replaced, and reused in the construction of another home.

- The use of reinforced concrete panels allows one hand to obtain a high thermal inertia in housing, and at the same time, it allows to recover all its structural elements.