The open floor plan leverages the home’s east elevation to deliver morning light to the kitchen and dining area, limiting the need for the pendant lights over the table on most days. The aluminum windows are fitted with PPG’s Solarban 70XL glazing, a commercial-grade, low-E coated insulated glass with a 0.27 solar heat gain coefficient, a U-value of 0.27, and 64% visible light transmittance. 888.774.4332. www.ppg.com.
The home’s predominant north-facing elevation is ideal for mitigating solar heat gain but difficult for harvesting daylight to offset lighting energy demand. The open floor plan includes large window and patio door expanses that draw and share as much daylight as possible. Ceiling fans from The Modern Fan Co. are essential to the home’s passive cooling and ventilation scheme. 888.588.3267. www.modernfan.com.
A central staircase (with an assist from a ceiling fan) acts like a chimney to draw cool air through the house from the basement to clerestory windows on the top floor, limiting the use of the central air cooling system to only the hottest days, and then only for a few hours. The relatively low velocity airflow allows the natural convection of cool air to pervade the main level.
Tapping into the Southern California climate, architect and owner Frank Pasker and his wife, Grit, deliver a dwelling that nearly negates the grid.
Custom Douglas fir-veneer plywood cabinets warm up the contemporary kitchen, featuring Energy Star appliances from Miele and Bosch and EuroStone quartz countertops. Pendant LED lights are from ET2 Contemporary Lighting. Miele: 800.843.7231. www.mieleusa.com. Bosch: 800.944.2904. www.bosch-home.com. EuroStone: 310.967.8000. www.eurostonequartzcountertops.com. ET2 Contempo-rary Lighting: 800.486.2946. www.et2online.com.
The seldom-used heating and cooling system and backup tankless water heater share space with the red greywater tank.
An innovative cladding system consists of a rainscreen barrier behind phenolic panels of high-pressure laminate that effectively manages incidental water and delivers a higher level of thermal value. The air space between the rainscreen and the cladding adds an extra insulating barrier; cellulose fiber and thermosetting resins bonded by heat and pressure create a nonporous, insulating panel system. Arpa USA: 212.334.6888. www.arpausa.com.
An R-38 insulated roof topped with a reflective, standing-seam metal roof from Custom-Bilt Metals is fitted on its west-facing side with a 3.2-kW PV array of 185-watt solar panels from Mitsubishi Electric and a pair of solar thermal collectors from Heliodyne. Custom-Bilt Metals: 800.826.7813. www.custombiltmetals.com. Mitsubishi Electric: 714.220.2500. www.mitsubishielectricsolar.com. Heliodyne: 888.878.8750. www.heliodyne.com.
For a cooling climate like Southern California’s, designer-owners Frank and Grit Pasker optimized a sloping, north-facing lot for passive cooling and ventilation that in large part enabled them to achieve their net-zero electrical energy goals. In addition to aluminum-framed, thermally broken windows and patio doors from Arcadia Architectural Products, the deep roof overhangs were computer-modeled for ideal shading value. 800.423.6565. www.arcadiaproducts.com.
Frank Pasker
