Architect Peter Pfeiffer, founding principal of Barley|Pfeiffer Architecture, explains how VISION House Austin uses climate-responsive design--sun angles, prevailing breezes, and shaded glass--to stay affordable, comfortable, and livable even without power.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:31:29
Peter Pfeiffer: What's special about the vision House project is it shows to a very strong extent what green building should have been. It's really climate responsive architecture where we were showing a normal person's house how it can be built to respond very well to what's coming and to make it affordable and livable. It's perhaps in direct contrast to some of the homes or the exemplary homes you see at the big builder shows.
00:00:32:02 - 00:00:56:03
Peter Pfeiffer: This is something that should appeal to the everyday person who wants to live responsibly with a lower carbon footprint. The vision House doesn't just have solar panels on the roof and batteries in the garage. It was designed from the start to respond to the sun angles and to the prevailing breezes, so we get no direct solar radiation hitting the glass.
00:00:56:05 - 00:01:23:21
Peter Pfeiffer: We have reflected light inside the house instead of hot solar radiation. It's comfortable by design. You could live in this house, or you could survive well in this house after a storm in the fall in Austin, Texas, which is where resiliency is important to us. Resiliency in our mind is defined by can you stay in this home without power and in the vision house?
00:01:23:21 - 00:01:31:16
Peter Pfeiffer: You will be able to live in this home without power, not because of the solar system so much, but because of the way the home was designed.