Evanston's First Passive House
The NextHaus Alliance team collaborated on this modern, Net Positive home located in one of Evanston's historic districts. Each company's unique expertise and dedication to sustainability contributed to its success as Evanston's first Passive House, one of the most rigorous building certifications for comfortable, energy efficient, and resilient homes. With tight construction and a highly insulated envelope, Passive House buildings operate on just one tenth the energy of an average home.
The design was carefully reviewed and approved by the Evanston Preservation Commission. It had to relate to the existing neighboring homes that range from 100 to 130 years old. This was accomplished by carefully aligning the design’s various design elements, heights and proportions to its neighbors.
The key feature of the first floor is the wide open great room that runs from the front to the back and highlights the centrally located Valcucine kitchen, which is manufactured to exacting sustainable European standards. The family room at the end of this open space features an extremely realistic, carbon free, ‘vapor’ fireplace in addition to a dramatic, vaulted, wood ceiling.
From a floor plan standpoint, the home is designed for aging in place. It features a first floor office that can convert to an accessible bedroom suite, with larger doors and wider hallways. A large workout room opens to the backyard patio. Upstairs are three bedrooms, two bathrooms and the laundry.
The exterior has a ‘light shelf’ on the south and west sides of the rear of the house. Light shelves shade the interior from the high summer sun while allowing the low winter sun to come in and heat the interior. Sunlight hitting the top side of the light shelf is redirected to the ceiling of the family room, providing great daylighting deep into the space.
The home is all electric, without a natural gas line. No gas line = no fossil fuel emissions. A 12.2 kW solar array makes the home ‘Net Positive’, meaning that on an annual basis, all of the home’s power (and then some) is provided by the solar array. In conjunction with a future battery back up system, the home will remain livable during long power outages.
The home only has a crawl space to minimize the use of concrete in the foundation. The footings and foundation walls use CarbonCure - a more sustainable concrete that is injected with CO2 and less cement - which reduces the concrete's overall carbon footprint by up to 10%.
The design was carefully reviewed and approved by the Evanston Preservation Commission. It had to relate to the existing neighboring homes that range from 100 to 130 years old. This was accomplished by carefully aligning the design’s various design elements, heights and proportions to its neighbors.
The key feature of the first floor is the wide open great room that runs from the front to the back and highlights the centrally located Valcucine kitchen, which is manufactured to exacting sustainable European standards. The family room at the end of this open space features an extremely realistic, carbon free, ‘vapor’ fireplace in addition to a dramatic, vaulted, wood ceiling.
From a floor plan standpoint, the home is designed for aging in place. It features a first floor office that can convert to an accessible bedroom suite, with larger doors and wider hallways. A large workout room opens to the backyard patio. Upstairs are three bedrooms, two bathrooms and the laundry.
The exterior has a ‘light shelf’ on the south and west sides of the rear of the house. Light shelves shade the interior from the high summer sun while allowing the low winter sun to come in and heat the interior. Sunlight hitting the top side of the light shelf is redirected to the ceiling of the family room, providing great daylighting deep into the space.
The home is all electric, without a natural gas line. No gas line = no fossil fuel emissions. A 12.2 kW solar array makes the home ‘Net Positive’, meaning that on an annual basis, all of the home’s power (and then some) is provided by the solar array. In conjunction with a future battery back up system, the home will remain livable during long power outages.
The home only has a crawl space to minimize the use of concrete in the foundation. The footings and foundation walls use CarbonCure - a more sustainable concrete that is injected with CO2 and less cement - which reduces the concrete's overall carbon footprint by up to 10%.
Project Year: 2024
Country: United States
Zip Code: 60202
