ABSTRACT
Bjorn Kierulf came into creating Passive Houses (PHs) in Slovakia through a slightly unusual route. By birth he is Norwegian, and by training he is an industrial designer. His wife, Zuzana Kierulfova, is the architect who was searching originally for alternative, more sustainable construction methods. Kierulfova has continued to push for greater acceptance of natural building materials. Their first PH was built using wood, cellulose, and 20 tons of clay plaster. Since then they have refined their use of natural building materials, concentrating on the use of straw panels, which are both insulating and load bearing. The home's foundation consists of a thin concrete wall just to the exterior of where the straw panels rest, then a layer of extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation, and a poured slab on the interior of the insulation. Exterior to the straw panels in the walls is a 10 cm layer of wood fiberboard insulation, covered by a ventilated facade or vapor-permeable plaster.
