i entered another architectural design competition at  passive house bulgaria and the first round of the contest is based on public response.

i am asking you to take a look at this link http://project.passivehousebg.com/en/projects/55-david-kominek-drkdesign and click on the star below my name to vote. that is all! (no registration required).  feel free to read all about the house design on the competition entry page.
i would appreciate it if you can assist in getting votes for my entry and thereby supporting the passive house movement to further create, educate and enrich people’s lives with energy-efficient homes.
the deadline to vote is april 6 2012.
thanks so much !

here are some images of the house design:

ps – if you want the long story about the contest, here it is:

design challenge:

passive house bulgaria challenges the architectural community to design a schematic design proposal for an affordable, low energy, single-family houses, focus the public attention to this new type of energy-efficient buildings, and promote the design and construction of passive houses in bulgaria. designs should demonstrate that the passive houses can be affordable and beautiful.

design a house in the village of lozen, located in the suburbs of sofia that is economical and has extremely low energy consumption. setbacks for the front and back must be 5 m (16 ft) sides 3 m. (10 ft). the design must have a treated floor area of 120-180 m². (1,292 – 1,938 sq. ft) – it must include a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms (min.), one full bath, one half bath, or two baths. the project teams may choose the orientation of the house. the use of sustainable concepts, including innovative technologies and methods that lead to additional savings of energy and natural resources, pollution neutralization concepts, use of local and recycled materials are beneficial for your design. the design proposal should strive to achieve the passive house standard as follows:

• annual heating and cooling requirement ≤ 15 kwh/m2/year
• primary energy ≤ 120 kwh/m2/year
• airtight building shell ≤ 0.6 ach @ 50 pascal pressure, (well-detailed construction)
• thermal bridge free construction ≤ 0.01 w/mk

first stage – selection of the top 10 projects finalists, chosen as follows:

• top three projects selected by the public vote
• top seven projects, selected by the teams, participating in the competition. the project teams are required to vote for one project, excluding their own. the vote needs to be submitted via email no later than april 6th, 2012. if any of the individual participants and teams fail to email their choice for favorite project, they will not continue in the next stage of the competition.the seven projects with the most votes will be included in the top ten finalists.

second stage – Selection of first place and four honorable mentions.

time table:

• official start of the design competition and the start of registration for contestants – january 16, 2012
• registration deadline is open to competition deadline march 16, 2012
• deadline for project submission – march 16, 2012 before 11:59 pm – eastern european time
• deadline for public vote, and vote from the teams participating in the contest to determine the ten finalists – from march 19, 2012 till april 6, 2012
• announcing the ten projects (finalists) – april 9, 2012
• official announcement of the decision of the jury: project winner – april 16, 2012

judging criteria

the top ten projects / finalists will be judged on a point system (from 1 to 10 points) per judge on the following criteria:

1. quality of design
2. originality of thinking
3. application of the passive house design standard
4. calculations, material choices and details (from excel sheet)
5. sustainable concepts – possible ideas relating to use of innovative technology and methods that lead to additional savings of energy and natural resources, pollution neutralization concepts, use of local, and recycled materials. the judges should review the projects on the competition website and should submit their evaluations and brief comments for the strong and weak points of each of the ten projects by april 14, 2012