Tenants move into Hastoe's Hatfield Heath rural Passivhaus development
Hastoe Housing Association have cemented their reputation as one of the leading providers of Passivhaus homes in the UK with the completion of their Hatfield Heath development in rural Essex, and in turn successfully continuing their ongoing ambition for 20% of all their future housing stock being built to the Passivhaus standard
The development of 14 units, 11 of which have been built to meet the Passivhaus standard, follows the completion of the Wimbish scheme in 2011, Hastoe’s first Passivhaus project and winner of the inaugural UK Passivhaus Awards. This scheme will be revisited as part of a special feature for the 2015 Awards ceremony on July 7th.
Hatfield Heath sees Hastoe continue their collaboration with leading Passivhaus architects, Parsons + Whittley, having worked together on a number of schemes in East Anglia including Wimbish, Ditchingham and Burnham Overy Staithe.
The focus of this development was on learning lessons from their previous projects and simplifying the design further, reducing build costs but without compromising on quality and performance.
Hatfield Heath uses similar construction methods and materials - blockwork and external wall insulation – but has adopted an alternative heating strategy due to the availability of gas in the area, whilst essential services such as the MVHR ductwork have been incorporated into the design at the earliest stage to reduce costs.
Tenants were able to move in to the houses in April of this year, following a well-established handover procedure that has been developed by Hastoe and Parsons + Whittley during their previous schemes. The certification and quality assurance process is well underway and is hoped to be concluded later this summer.
Hatfield HeathProject team: Client: Hastoe Housing Association |
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Chris Parsons, Managing Director at Parsons + Whittley Architects has been writing a fantastic monthly blog for HABM, detailing the key stages, successes and difficulties of the project from the early design stage, right through to completion and handover.
Chris also reaffirms the importance of careful material selection (and potential problems of material substitution), the merits of the Passivhaus certification process, and reflects on the lessons learnt during the project.
The blog can be read in full at www.habmonline.co.uk.
11th June 2015
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