The Library House Project

Designed by award-winning Macdonald Wright Architects and built in 2020, this two bed, two floor terraced home combines exceptional thermal efficiency, a solar array, exquisitely crafted materials and a secluded walled garden to the rear.

Introduction

The Library House at 211 Northwold Road, completed in 2020, is a crafted, low energy house adjacent to Edwin Cooper’s Grade II listed Clapton Library in Hackney, London. Designed by award-winning practice Macdonald Wright Architects the two bed, two storey terraced home has an internal floor area matching that of the average UK dwelling (84m2) and sits on a compact plot with a secluded walled garden to the rear.

While respecting its neighbours, The Library House is a contemporary building that also sets up a dialogue with them, allowing past and present to interact. Constructed using a glazed white clay brick contrasted with weathered Corten steel the house has been sensitively designed to echo the proportions and character of its neighbours. The Northwold Road façade maintains the coping level and window proportions of the adjacent cottages, knitting together and balancing the composition of the existing streetscape elevation, while the vertical russet coloured Corten steel plane acts as a simple formal separation of the red brick library and white cottages. This element is playfully backlit at night to express the presence of the new house and its perforate materiality.

The simple nature of the architectural forms, delivered with a pared back material palette, are enriched with bespoke crafted details. The window heads to the front elevation of the house are constructed with a subtle lime scraped tile slip detail, recognising the similar detail to the adjacent library arches and references southern English vernacular architecture and the works of Arts and Crafts architects.

Sustainability

The Library House was designed and constructed to meet the AECB Building Standard (Association of Environment Conscious Building, based on the Passivhaus Standard and formerly known as the 'Silver Standard') far beyond the current requirements of UK Building Regulations and conceived in principle as a prototype for urban infill affordable sustainable homes.

The house is heavily insulated and triple glazed. It achieves an annual space heating demand of 17kWh/m2 annum and an outstandingly low heat load of 750Watts to maintain 20'C in the winter, with most new houses in 2020 requiring about ten times that amount. This exceptional performance is achieved through carefully detailed, well insulated external building fabric; avoiding thermal bridges; incorporating triple glazing; a Passivhaus front door; an airtightness of 1.3 ACH@50Pa; and a whole house mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery (MVHR) system.

The building also includes a highly efficient solar photovoltaic system of ten panels, collectively producing 2.8 KW, with a super insulated water tank which is Bluetooth linked to the inverter and topped up before surplus electricity is sent to the national grid. Additional top-up heating is provided with an Amptec electric boiler as the house has been designed without reliance upon gas. Fresh air is maintained both passively in summer and using a mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR) in colder months. All appliances are A rated or better and all lighting is low energy.

Sustainability was considered in material selection in terms of embodied energy and future maintenance to achieve a house which will age well with time.