New turbine roof design

This is the new roof section that houses the wind turbines. This design is much more successful in integrating the turbines into the structure of the house. 3 wind tunnels are now modelled into the roof allowing the turbines to spin and collect energy to be used in the house. 

Wind turbines too flimsy and thin in this render. 

More robust Turbine model, downloaded from 3dsky.com

View of solar panels

Cladding changes

I thought the exterior of the house was too uniform in colour, it needed an added element to break up the black façade. This concept house is heavily influenced by Scandinavian architecture so it made sense to look at some examples for inspiration on how to break up the exterior of the house. A feature of Scandinavian architecture flat colours and the use of wood. This led me to add a wooden accent onto the front of the house. The use of a natural material emphasises the houses connection to its environment and how it cleanly draws from its natural resources. 

Examples of Scandinavian and modern cladding 

The wood in the first render was too shiny so with an adjustment to the specular layer of the material I could tone it down. 

Underneath house could be a potential space for a bike rack.

Texturing props and test renders

These are some examples of the props that were downloaded from www.3dsky.com and www.turbosquid.com. 

These were then textured manually from custom made textures allowing me greater control on how the interiors looked.

Back structure

This the the rear of the building and also acts as the entrance. The occupants will gain entry to the house via the spiral staircase. The sheltered alcove also acts as a place for storage. The stone material also emphasises the houses connection to nature.

Influenced by this image, a rose tinted fire station in the town of Vierschach in South Tyrol.
Built from from "lightweight concrete, the design prioritizes simplicity and durability." Simplicity and durability are values I aim to communicate in my building also.

Link to article

Wind turbine integration

These concepts were attempting to integrate the wind turbines into the structure of the house in a way that would become an interesting design feature.I was trying to avoid just placing a wind turbine on the roof as it would break up the lines of the house. 

I decided placing the turbines into the actual structure of the house was the best way forward. These turbine walls were the result of some concept modelling. At this stage I wasn't happy with how the turbine wall was sitting on top of the house, even with the colour and shape varitions.   

Also the actual turbines themselves looked very thin and flimsy, a more robust turbine will be added in the future. 

Design influenced by:

Link to article

"The polka dotted hyper-efficient exoskeleton shell simultaneously provides building structure, thermal mass for insulation, shading for natural cooling, enclosure for terraces, armatures for turbines, and loggias for congregating on the ground." 

This building aimed to showcase a dynamic synergy between architecture and ecology, a philosophy that my building shares.

Solar panel configurations

Initially I modelled some standard solar panels, this is a common layout in today's market. Although this works fine it doesn't sit with  aesthetically well with my concept house. This concept house is a showcase of contemporary design and architecture, standard solar panels would clash with this image.

This led me to design and model these hexagon shaped solar panels. These were visually more interesting than the square panels and also tied into the hexagon theme that I was utilising through my design, namely on the exterior cladding. These hexagon panels were more consistent with the design of the rest of the house and project at large.

These solar panels (once fixed to the roof of the house) would be featured in the final property brochure, illustrating the benefits of having solar panels on the house. I don't want to get too technical when describing these panels, too much technical information would put off a potential customer. It's only important to sell the concept at this stage.

Exterior lighting tests

This was some initial exterior renders to test lighting set ups and how the materials were rendering. My current hardware would not render full environments such as grass,trees,vegetation etc so I was forced to only render the building on top of a simple plain. This would allow me to extract the building and place it into a photograph that would act as the surrounding environment.7

At this stage the final design was not decided, this was simply testing my lighting and hdri set up. I downloaded a free to use hdri pack which is a set of skys with different lighting values and set at different times of the day with variations of cloud cover. This allowed me to light my house with a number of different looks, morning, dusk, night etc. 

I also added a vray light that acted as the sun within my scene, I could control which angle the sun would hit the house and also the length of shadow that was cast 

Proof of concept; placing a render into a photograph. With some basic Photoshop post works the house sat realistically within the scene. In Photoshop the reflections were added to the windows and shadows were added. These tests will become useful once I am placing my final design into a photograph.