Director at Sanctum Design James Cooper specialises in sustainable building design and the thermal performance of buildings. Achieving a 7-star energy rating has been a benchmark for his design projects for many years now, but he welcomes the new mandate of 7-star ratings for all new homes.
“I think it’s great that we’ve mandated 7-star now. I think going forward it is something that will test many but I think the secret is having a really good thermal performance assessor on board who can give you qualified feedback going forward,” he says. Adding that it will see more designers looking towards passive solar or passive house designs.
James’ background is in passive solar design, but says passive house design, which originated in Europe, is certainly gaining more traction in Australia. He explains that a passive solar design approach embraces environmental conditions and connects to them, whereas passive house design is very regulated through air handling.
“The free-running buildings that we do are tending to open up and connect to external environmental factors, looking for a bit more cross ventilation where we can,” he says.
“I think passive house is the way forward in terms of a change of climate and needing to reduce our reliance on additional energy systems to control the heat within the home. We can’t just open up our doors to 42-degree heat (which might happen much more often) whereas we can shut everything down within a passive house and control that internal environment better”.
Even so, passive solar is still James’ preferred design methodology as connecting to the surrounding landscape and environment is at the heart of his designs.
James has received over 50 design awards for his work, including the 2022 National Design Award for Heritage Buildings/Adaptive reuse for Laureston House in Gladesville NSW. Sustainability was a key driver for the extension James designed for this heritage-listed Georgian sandstone cottage and federation wing.
James employed some significant north-facing glass using the AWS e Series 704 SlideMASTER Sliding Door to expand across the width of the kitchen, living, and dining space with a secondary level of fixed highlights above amplifying the views to the neighbouring trees.
“We could get some really nice spans out of that and have some really nice size openings when we’re able to open up to good outside conditions. But we were able to seal that in with a double-glazed low e system to trap that heat in when wanted to”.
“We also employed a lot of thermal mass internally. We used a dark tiled floor which was able to absorb the winter sun and also used to control the internal environment”.
“I was able to use the AWS system to minimise the impact of heat loss and heat gain”.
James loves working with glass in his designs saying “the more transparency and connectivity to our environment we can have the more glorious that experience within the home can be”.
He says the evolution of technology in building materials helps streamline his designs.
“If we are not constantly striving for better outcomes with the building fabric then we are walkways going to be a little hemmed at designers”.
If you’d like to find out more about the wonders of passive design and window glazing, listen to the whole episode of the podcast here.
