Roberts Passive House
Southampton, New Jersey
Motivated by a mission to create the most energy efficient home possible, Phil and Melinda Roberts put together a team of collaborators to design and build the first Certified Passive House in Burlington County, New Jersey. Hugh Lofting provided full construction management and timber framing for the project.
The house takes inspiration from the surrounding farms and landscape – on a site that was once part of Phil’s family’s farmstead. The design puts a modern spin on a traditional farmhouse. Simple and efficient, the plan places all living spaces within a compact rectangular footprint, wrapped on three sides by open porches. An attached two-car garage extends to the fourth side. The first floor contains an open-concept living room, dining area, and kitchen along with a mudroom, laundry, and powder room. The second floor includes three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. An unfinished basement provides room to expand in the future.
Views and solar paths helped determine the orientation of the house on its site, which was then verified with WUFI® energy modeling software to confirm Passive House qualities.
Board-and-batten style vertical metal siding clads most of the exterior. Horizontal wood siding finishes the protected walls beneath the timber-framed porches. Roofs are capped with standing-seam metal roofing.
High-tech systems and a super-insulated, airtight, and thermal bridge-free enveloped are unexpected behind the traditional façade. The team selected Build SMARTTM wall panels for the main part of the house and Ideal Precast Building Systems insulated, prefabricated concrete wall panels for the basement. Using the Build SMART building envelope system allowed for a streamlined installation of Passive House exterior walls with airtight factory-installed windows, reducing labor on site.
Read more about this project on the Roberts Passive House Blog.
Read the home’s Passive House statistics at Passive House Institute US.
Architect: C2 Architecture
Contractor: Hugh Lofting Timber Framing & High Performance Building
Completed: 2020
Size: 1,770 square feet
Award:
2020 PHIUS Passive House Projects Competition – Single Family Honorable Mention
Images by Sam Oberter
