A low-energy home in Bulgaria proves that roofing can successfully combine traditional and modern. The building is well designed for local climate conditions.
It was designed to be a modern home that would also blend in with the traditional local architecture. In the southern part of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, at the foot of the Vitosha massif, which has peaks over 2,000 m, a private client planned his own home with a focus on superior comfort and low costs.
Bulgaria’s first e4 brick building was born out of a collaboration between Wienerberger and A&A Architects in Sofia.
The Bulgarian architectural firm A&A Architects designs and implements projects ranging from single-family homes to commercial and office buildings and parks. A holistic approach is important to the planners, who strive for the perfect balance of aesthetic, functional, cost-effective and eco-friendly features, whatever the location.
All of these considerations are in accordance with the key principles of the Wienerberger e4 brick house concept: total aesthetic freedom, while meeting the most exacting standards in relation to ecology, economy, living quality and energy. The design process for this single-family home also had the broader aim of developing a scalable residential model with a low ecological footprint.
“The challenge with this project was to create a low-energy house with a contemporary design, using traditional materials: fired bricks, a pitched roof in a location with cold winters,” say the architects. They used fired bricks with a mineral wool filling, which have both a particularly low heat transfer coefficient and a high thermal mass, whilst also being highly vapour permeable.
The building is designed to maximise use of solar energy; it is passively heated and also incorporates photovoltaic panels and solar collectors on the roof, which have been positioned to capture as much solar power as possible. External blinds on the windows of the south façade provide shade. The gable roof reflects the traditional pitched roofs of the region; the roof tiles continue down to the façades on the north and south sides, continuing the historical finishing touch of the pitched roof to create a modern residential structure.
“The process of realising this project has demonstrated that this approach is suitable for broad application, and can be an effective strategy for coping with the effects of climate change,” say the architects.
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