R E A L L H o u s i n g R e s e a r c h
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the houses will be constructed with insulated blockwork cavity walls. The performance of
these 40 homes will be compared with the lightweight houses.
The house type chosen for the study is a 2 storey semi-detached dwelling. Three
reasons for this are: 1) semi-detached dwellings account for the second largest type of
housing within Scotland and the UK of approximately 26%; 2) semi-detached dwellings
allow for long term comparative studies of technologies between neighbouring dwellings;
3) party wall performance plus external perimeter walls can be studied simultaneously.
.
It is also proposed that a visitor centre will be built to provide a focus for the KE
dissemination events and programmes, a data hub for researchers and a social facility
for the staff and students in this part of the campus.
Figure 4. The location of the Living Lab and the Housing Hubs in the village
Materials and Appearance
There are three types of semi-detached dwelling houses within the eco-village. The 2
bed living lab house and a 3 bed hub house will have the same gross internal floor area
of 94m2, while the accessible house is slightly larger to accommodate wheelchair
access requirements.
The external materials of the houses has been varied to ensure a diversity of
appearance and to express the various types of construction build-ups that have been
used on the project. During the first measurement season sensors will be embedded to
test the thermal and hygroscopic performance of the wall materials in the occupied
buildings. All homes will be fitted with solar hot water and PV systems and a key aim of
the project is to establish what percentage of the required energy can be harvested
reliably by the building integrated solar systems and at what financial and embodied
energy costs.
