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Award-Winning Watercooled House for Singapore from Wallflower

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Is Singapore’s Wallflower Architecture + Design leading the way to the innovative and responsible use of water cooling to replace air conditioning in high end residential design?

Here is yet another example of this attractive and energy efficient technology, from Wallflower,  who deservedly have won this year’s Singapore Institute of Architects Design Award for yet another house in Singapore to use water for cooling.

In an unusual reversal of the norm, in this house the living room and the infinity pool are on the second storey.

This helps prevent solar heat gain underneath, thermally insulating the floor below, containing the dining, bedrooms and family spaces.

The cooling pool is contained within this white overhang, on the second floor.

At the far end, the pool overhang creates a carport.

A spiral stairway with a small footprint connects the ground floor to the second storey pool.

This leaves the rest of second floor to appearing to float on the pool, entirely free and open for uninterrupted enjoyment of the tropical views in a cool surrounding.

At the other end of the “pool floor”, the peaceful living room can be entirely glassed in or left almost completely open to the tropical breezes.

Underneath, in many of the family rooms, Travertine stone walls that act as heat sinks continue the work of cooling without using dangerous fossil energy.

Outside the family rooms and to one side of the pool above is a Koi pond that is open to the rainwater from above, thus providing a cooled breezeway for the family members.

Yet for all these unconventional technologies that reduce the energy use by the house, the view from the neighbors is just of an elegant but fairly traditional rooftop.

Wallflower is making it easy (and gorgeous!) being Green.

Via Plusmood