Passive House Seignosse Seignosse, France

House in Seignosse: Construction of a passive house

Mission : Analysis, Feasibility, Programming, Competition organization + Support to project owner

Analyse, étude de Faisabilité, Programmation architecturale, Organisation de Concours d'architecte maison passive suivi AMO assistance maîtrise d'ouvrage

Mission : Analysis, Feasibility, Programming, Competition organization + Support to project owner

The genesis
Context
Programming
Concours d’architecture
The winning project & the finalists

Close to the ocean and Hossegor lake, Caroline and Charl owned a 1700m2 plot in Seignosse, and wanted to build a passive house in keeping with a sustainable lifestyle.

The Landes department, historically a tourist area, is suffering from urban sprawl and lacks the environmentally-friendly buildings that are needed to change people’s attitudes. Aware of the ecological footprint of each new building, the clients wanted a project that would set an example for the coming decades in terms of energy performance, environmental design and its relationship with nature.

As nature lovers, the customers also wanted to create a project inspired by biophilic design. Behind this clever name, the aim was to build a house where landscape and architecture merged to create a genuine living experience aimed at the well-being of occupants, the development of biodiversity on the site and its environment.

The entire project had to meet the Passivhaus Institute’s Passive House certification requirements and achieve the lowest possible carbon footprint in the E+C- experiment launched by the French government.

Hello,
We're in the process of finalizing the sale of a plot of land on which we'd like to build a passive and ecological house. We don't know how to go about finding the right architect for the project. Is a competition possible?
Hello Caroline,
Wonderful project! Yes, organizing a competition for the construction of a house is very appropriate, and in view of the minimal extra cost involved, I can only encourage you to take this step.
Thanks Mathias. We live abroad, is it possible to manage this competition remotely?
Yes, of course, we're used to working on projects all over the world, so we'll be able to work by video and go on site at key moments in the project, starting with the site visit.

Context

Not just a vacation home.

Located in a residential area of Seignosse, the house is 400m west of the sea, accessible by the same road. Seignosse town center is about 4 kilometers to the east. Like many residential areas in this region, the avenue is lined with long hedges and boundary walls, systematically interrupted by the gates of the various residences.

An international family, one South African and the other Swedish, living in Belgium at the time of the project, they had the idea of building from scratch. Their work and careers could still take them to other places. So their wish was to build a house in a place they loved, which could become a central location for family and friends during the vacations, but with the possibility of becoming a main residence in the future.

Building this house was as much about creating a central space for the family as it was about creating an exciting, fun and innovative construction project. A project that challenged the norms and attitudes acquired over time by building sustainably, creatively and in harmony with nature. Design a sustainable, biophilic home, surrounded by plants and trees, that actively enhanced biodiversity. Create a habitat and food source for birds, insects and other creatures, while offering the opportunity to grow vegetables and fruit for the family.

The program

An ecological and biophilic home

The project had to be in tune with the times and the issues. It had to be sufficiently emblematic to serve as an example of passive construction with a very low carbon footprint, while respecting the client’s wishes. The project did not have to undergo the bioclimatic devices and characteristics of a passive house, but had to be a coherent architectural work, conferring comfort, practicality and harmony with the living environment.

From the very beginning of the project, BAM and the couple worked closely together to meticulously identify the main issues and objectives of this home construction project, in order to guarantee the success of this life project.

To design the renovation of this house, we focused on 2 key factors:

Biophilic design: Plants are essential to human life. People and the construction industry have understood this to their cost for many years, building impermeable surfaces for decades and ignoring the power of plants on human well-being.
Convinced by the biophilic design approach, the owners wanted to create a home that would be a true haven of peace, surrounded by nature. The aim was not to create a piece of jungle in Seignosse, but to draw inspiration from local nature and create living spaces, masking the boundaries between indoors and outdoors.
Energy Exemplarity: As part of the project, the main house was to achieve Passive House certification by meeting all the following criteria, validated with the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP):
- Heating requirements had to be less than 15 kWh/(m².a) or heating power less than 10 W/m².
- The house had to have less than 10% of overheating hours per year (i.e. T >25°C). In the case of mechanical cooling, requirements had to be less than 15 kWh/(m².a) and room dehumidification requirements or cooling capacity less than 10 W/m².
- Total primary energy requirements (including household appliances) had to be less than 120 kWh/(m².a).
- The airtightness of the envelope should be n50 ≤ 0.6 h-1.

Architectural competition

International and talent

Once the programming phase is complete, the competition and specifications will be published. Backed by an extensive network of national and international architects, the competition was a great success, with over 100 entries.

After an intense selection process, our customers decided to select 3 teams for the final stage of the competition.

Two intermediary juries and a final jury later – stages of the competition that proved fascinating for their enrichment of the project’s potential – it was the Nathanael Dorent team that came through. It was the most convincing, with a project that was both elegant in its simplicity and ingenious in its ability to find concrete solutions for optimizing the site.

The winning project

Nathanael Dorent Architecture

Responding perfectly to our customers' specifications, N. Dorent's project struck the right balance between contemporary architecture and adaptation to an important local context.