policarbonate will yellow in time. not nice.

What's beautiful about green house is the lightness of the structure and the thinness of the glass make them so delicate and tranparent. But thin glass will be rubish for insulation in winter, and you'd die with the summer heat gain ....

unless you got really tricky with thinking through some passive thermal strategies like trombe walls to hold heat in the winter, use stack effect and operable windows to keep air circulating in summer.

just thinking aloud here ....

Agreed,

I am thinking well insulated internal boxes - sitting under the structure for the sleeping, bathing functions. Thick, insulated concrete pad.

Another factor will be noise from rain wind. You can get twin-skin greenhouse structures also...

FAR's Wall house is another example.

j-turn:

i posted this in the name that building thread...


it's greenhouse-ish.

uses thermal mass and stack effect for passive heating/cooling.

you can actually get a fairly energy efficient house by using single pane glass over concrete or thick wood walls..

It should be, “no stone throwing regardless of housing situation.” Unless you were trapped in a glass house, then by all means, if you have a stone, use it. So really its, “only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped inside.”

In which case it should be mandatory for all people living in glass houses to have a supply of adequately sized stones for that very purpose.

The Lacaton-Vassal examples rely on a kind of double-facade - there is a raw box (no finished exterior) as a core and the greenhouse as the outer shell - the air in the space between acts as insulation in winter, and the area can be used as a "second livingroom" in summer. That would be the first image, the second has the warm, insulated living spaces below, in the concrete plinth.

I've always thought L&V:s designs are economically sound. They are mostly for people with modest income with the idea: a lot of space, at as small a cost as possible. Haven't lived in a space like that, though.

before everyone goes off thinking hma is hilarious, those quotes need to be attributed to the awesomely brilliant Demitri Martin.

"B-Batteries dammit! I've said it 3 times!"

i like what diabase is getting at here ... it's almost like you can take the house and pry its layers apart. Rooms become little insulated buildings within the greehouse bubble ... very beautiful idea.

and helsinki too - this would make a house with an interesting section.

Have you looked at ETFE? It's the bubbly material the H&deM used to clad the munich stadium. It's light and transparent ish. Don't know what it does insulation wise, but thrown stones will just bounce right off.

ETFE has nominal U-value as a single layer, but when you assemble it into inflated pillows of 3+ layers it becomes very competitive... more fun with ETFE is when you insert a controllable active shading layers with a frit pattern that can be inflated/deflated to vary the opacity. no more heat gain!!!

I have been looking at some local [NZ] greenhouse companies. They have a 9.6m or 12.8m span, and sections of 4m, and column heights of 4.1m at the gutter which allows a mezzanine level. You would need a flat site of course, or a logical series of steps.

Another idea in the same line is that of Agricultural Baroque from The Rexroth Mannasmann Collective and Lucy Tibbits Architects based in Melbourne.

For plants not people.

Great insight zoolander, thanks. Good luck with the modelling.

Are you talking about actual, off the rack greenhouse systems or items that just look like a greenhouse.

Agricultural Greenhouses (in the US) have a maximum R-value of R-3 so that the snow melts quickly from internal heat and slides off, which allows them to minimize their structural systems. Often times they are also only of an "importance value" of 0.5 instead of 1.0 of typical construction, which allows for less stringent construction standards and techniques.

But if you want it to just look like a greenhouse...

Polycarbonate is now available with an acrylic film on the outside to prevent yellowing, btw - but there goes its fire resistant properties.

But if you are going to have people living in the greenhouse, you will need to use the requirements necessary for 1.0 importance - and so may need a less cost effective construction.

Diabase, you've probably done alot more research on this than I have, but if you go with a standard greenhouse system and then have insulated boxes inside, the public realms of your house will be uninhabitable.

That said, you would have a variety of options on hand to make it more liveable. The most expensive and practical option would be a double glass skin with operable openings on all sides of your enclosure to maximize circulation (this could look very cool, a double skinned cube with little cubes inside of it). Using fritted or translucent glass on the top, south and western exposures would also limit gain. Louvers are a cheaper option, but you would lose some of your "greenhouse-ness". Double or triple glazing would be a must otherwise, or a combination of systems. Using channel glass maybe a good option as well. The biggest criticism leveled at the glass house is solar/heat gain which by their very nature is a problem with the typology from the get-go. Frankly I would probably never design a house like the one your describing because of the sheer amount of issues that would have to be dealt with making the house liveable.

Apurimac,

It will use a fully commercial, twin-skin poly carbonate cladding with light-weight structural steel system, with mechanically opening louvres [which can be automated]. A well insulated concrete floor to act as a passive heat exchange would also be needed.

A temperate climate such as that found in France [Lacaton & Vassal] will be necessary, and the internal boxes would need to be well insulated.

It has been done before, it is a question really of is this appropriate, what is it like to live in one and what are the costs like?