Juraj Mikurcik’s beautiful little self-build Passivhaus is a house that I can totally imagine living in myself, and absolutely loving.
Juraj is a Passivhaus architect at pioneering firm Architype. In this modest single-storey house (home for Juraj, his wife Joyce, and their irrepressible spaniel Midge) they have combined all the technical know-how that makes Passivhaus buildings comfortable and healthy, winter and summer, with a very personal use of sustainable materials and beautiful hand-crafted finishes.
The structure is made with a compressed-straw offsite-panel-construction system from Ecococoon. Components are built to exact size in Ecococoon’s Lithuanian factory, and shipped to the UK for very rapid on-site assembly.
Outside the house is clad in charred local cedar –Juraj did all the charring by hand with a blow-torch. Inside is a polished concrete floor – the aggregate sparkles with colour, revealed after many days of diligent labour (again, by Juraj) with a grinding machine. And the walls are plastered with an unfired clay, skilfully applied with the expert help of Roman, a craftsman Juraj met when home for a holiday in Slovakia. The texture of the plaster – mixed with a little chopped straw to echo the structure beneath – is quite magical.
If you want to know more, and find out just how well the house performs, then there is a detailed case study here in Passive House Plus magazine.