Design with shade, The Wave House

Malaga, Spain

The Wave House, Malaga

Photo © Griesser AG

Design, sustainability and energy efficiency are the unique combination that makes the Wave House, the second ‘Passive House’ to be built in Mijas near Malaga on Spain’s Costa del Sol, such a standout home.

The villa’s planning and construction paid due and full regard to both design and sustainability criteria to ensure its ‘Passive House Classic’ certification. As a result, the house offers its residents maximum thermal and acoustic comfort along with cooling and heating energy savings of 85 to 90 per cent. All of which not only enhances comfort and quality of life: it also ensures that the initial investment should be fully recouped within seven to ten years.

Design with shade

The whole design approach to the Wave House was geared to its overall aspect and its views of the sea. It’s these two factors that determined the house’s spatial axis, which runs from north to south. The facades around the living area on its east, south and west sides have been devised as double openings, providing a strong continuity between the interior and the outside. With such open design, effective solar shading is crucial, to avoid overheating and excessive energy gains. In this regard, the house’s shading design – fixed elements such as the roof guttering and movable elements such as the venetian blinds – is of vital importance in controlling the amounts of solar radiation to which the openings are exposed. Effective regulation here enables this solar energy to be utilized in winter, while the same energy gains can be avoided in the warm summer months.

The canopy, which runs around the house like a single large shading slat, also serves as a striking design element and a further key architectural accent.