100K

Mario Cuccinella

“Low Cost – Dream Home – Low Environmental Impact”, these are the three key principles (the first financial, the second social and the third environmental) behind the €100,000 Home research project that launches a new concept of residential housing. The project is an attempt to find an effective solution to the issues of affordable costs, low pollutant emissions and genuinely attractive housing.

The house has a bright, lively design that readily adapts to the needs of different residents and lifestyles, as well as producing energy through a series of passive and active strategies that make it an efficient bioclimatic machine. "This is a modular house where only the framework is pre-designed,” explains Cucinella. “The interiors can all be personalised, whereas the exteriors are designed to fit together with others in order to create a series of communal structures and facilities ranging from bike ramps and laundries to tools and other objects."

The research project was presented for the first time at the “Campionaria delle Qualità Italiane” trade fair, with the aim of showing that high energy efficiency is now a fundamental requirement in housing design and can no longer be regarded as an optional or luxury extra. Mario Cucinella defines the project as follows, “The €100,000 Home, an idea we launched some time ago, has really caused quite a stir. It is basically an attractive, low cost house that in addition to consuming very little, also produces energy that can be used to pay back part of the initial investment required to buy it.”

To ensure the complex is environmentally friendly, the basic architectural concept includes choices that combine an optimum position and shape, alternating closed and empty spaces, a customised envelope, and communal landings and balcony overhangs with a series of active and passive energy-saving strategies including built-in photovoltaic panels integrated with the roof design.

A typical complex consists of a block of 22 different residential units, located within an extremely regular structural grid (measuring 7.5 m x 12.0 m). The units can be simplex or duplex, with an external balcony or terrace, a private staircase or communal landing. The entire complex covers a gross floor area of approximately 1860 m², spread over four floors above ground level. The block has been designed with its most compact façade facing North and its most complex façade facing South, and all units have twin frontage to help ventilate the structure naturally. The southern façade includes a much higher proportion of glass to take advantage of natural light and heat during the winter and is screened from the sun in the summer by the stairs, landings and balcony overhangs as well as an external mobile screening system that filters sunshine and light. Roof gardens and greenery on the balconies also help to stabilise the external microclimate and encourages passive cooling. The structural framework of the complex and its glazed or opaque cladding system are designed to create a rhythmic expansion of interior - exterior space via a series of balconies, terraces and landings, whereas the interiors have been conceived as large, open spaces to be divided and customised with internal partitioning.

Built-in photovoltaic panels are integrated with the roof design (a maximum of 600m² per unit can be installed), covering all the building’s energy needs, and powering a groundwater or geothermal heat pump, depending on where the house is located. This system also provides inhabitants with a micro-income thanks to feed-in tariff incentives. Particular care has been taken over the handling of water resources. A rainwater recovery system has been included, and in some cases a phytodepuration plant as well.

As this research has a “low cost” focus, prefabricated, drywall construction methods and technological components have been chosen in order to reduce costs, thanks to the macro-scale of the project, accelerate completion times and reduce risks on site. At present, in addition to the standard technological solution that uses a structure of reinforced concrete beams and pillars and drywall cladding (in either a light or solid version), we are also developing, together with our technical partner Italcementi, other prefabricated components that will enable us to steadily reduce construction costs.

In short, the combination of new technologies, highly flexible industrialised systems, a wide-reaching understanding of social fabrics and people’s needs and greater care over energy efficiency have created a new panorama.

In order to provide new answers to new needs, our research seeks to reassemble an organic construction chain based on a general project that also takes the social aspects of architecture into account.

The scenario outlined in Makno & Consulting’s recent Housing Evolution survey shows that today, more than ever before, peoples’ interests, needs and aspirations are focused on the home. This has led to a variety of different lifestyles where the home may be an open invitation for socializing with family or friends, a deliberate reflection of the occupant’s taste and style or simply a practical unit in which to enjoy one’s daily existence. The €100,000 Home research project has been specifically created to give these new styles space and to restore the appeal of home life.

Organized By