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Casa Batroun
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Batroun, Lebanon
Client
Private family
Architect
Maha Nasrallah
Architect, Beirut, Lebanon
Location
Batroun seaside
road, Batroun,
Lebanon
Description
The Casa
Batroun project consisted in the renovation
and extension of an old 100m2
family house, in the Mediterranean sea-side
town of Batroun, North of Lebanon. The
objective was to double the existing surface
area in an exemplary eco-friendly way,
demonstrating that this is a possibility in
a country where the latest tendency has
unfortunately been –with the lack of proper
regulation-- to destroy the old heritage and
replace beautiful classified houses with
characterless concrete high-rise buildings.
Image Courtesy of Walid Rashid
Brief
We wanted to preserve the initial house
legacy (built in the 1930s) and take
advantage of its bio-climatic features such
as its high ceilings and original opposite
elongated windows favoring air circulation
and cross-ventilation. This was even more so
important after the discovery that the house
was actually built with local sandstone (the
apparent concrete was only a cement plaster)
and had the internal triple arcade,
characteristic of Lebanese traditional
houses (the arcade was also plastered and
painted, hiding the original structure)...
The client’s request also included the usage
of natural and breathable materials,
promoting low-embodied energy as well as
healthy materials and finishes.
The exposed sandstone walls proved to be
inadequate to support another level, thus a
new structurally independent wooden
structure, composed of 4 vertical boxes, was
inserted vertically into the original house,
creating a play of levels from ground floor
to mezzanine to first floor, while doubling
the floor area. The design was further
enhanced by carefully adopting bio-climatic
features to facilitate cross-ventilation,
reduce summer overheating, and limit the
need for winter heating. One important
aspect of the house, which the architect was
able to convey very well, is its compactness
and extremely smart usage of space,
especially in the 50m2 one-bedroom upper
flat whereby, for example, the internal
staircase also acts as side drawers usable
in the bedroom. In a country where the
average flat exceeds 200m2 and
can easily reach 500-1,000m2 in
private villas, the idea was to demonstrate
that comfort and well-being do not have to
be interlinked with size, luxury, and
automated systems, and to help breaking the
common belief that those elements do not
constitute the “dream house”.
Image Courtesy of Maha Nasrallah
The house is probably one of the first in
Lebanon to be built combining old sandstone
and timber, while adopting almost
exclusively natural, low-toxicity, and
breathable materials. The following are some
of its main eco-features: Bio-climatic
design enhancing cross-ventilation and
eliminating the need for cooling systems;
energy-efficiency through carefully studied
window positioning, shading devices, natural
insulation, LED zoning of lighting, Solar
Water Heating and wood pellet stoves. Water
savings are realized via rainwater
harvesting and low-water fixtures, while a
vegetated green roof with native plants was
implemented.
Space heating with wood pellet stoves
The building of the house favored
collaboration with local artisans and
workers, using traditional techniques such
as old oriental ceramic tiling (salvaged
from demolished houses), earth-lime
plastering, or artistic steel works for the
terrace balustrade. Some of those techniques
will soon be forgotten given the excessive
reliance on hasty concrete buildings, and
one of the project’s objectives was to
showcase that beautiful modern houses can
still adopt traditional techniques and
elegantly blend the new with the old. One of
the key innovative features of the house was
the use of earth plaster for all the walls,
made with local clay. Starting from the
traditional mud plaster used in old Lebanese
rural houses, the architect tested several
formulas combining different proportions of
local clay, sand, lime and straw, in order
to obtain a plaster that has the required
thermal mass and does not crumble easily.
The final formula includes two layers of
clay plaster merged together with a fiber
mesh and finished with a third layer of
white lime plastering.
Earth plastering tests during construction
Insulating the house was done with natural
breathable materials which are not commonly
used in the country, while synthetic cheaper
insulation is typically the norm (if any
insulation at all…). A combination of sheep
wool and rigid wood fiber was used for the
roofs, while the walls were insulated with
loose and dense wood-fiber insulating
boards. Furthermore, handmade salvaged
refurbished furniture and decorative items
were preferred. The owner’s family, friends,
design team, and workers were invited to
tile painting parties to emphasize the
social context… that building can be fun and
partially handmade. Earth plastering
workshops were organized with the architect
and sustainability team to learn about those
forgotten materials. Additionally, sealants,
adhesives, wood varnish, and paint were all
careful selected with no or very low VOC
(Volatile Organic Compounds) levels,
beneficial from a health & well-being
perspective by improving the indoor air
quality of houses and reduce the risks of
condensation, mould growth, and associated
diseases.
Casa Batroun green roof - Image Courtesy of
Walid Rashid
Another innovative aspect of the project is
the installation of a semi-extensive green
roof on one of its roofs, which was planted
by carefully selecting mainly native flowers
and plants to limit water usage for
irrigation.
Finally, Casa Batroun house was renovated
and built following all the criteria of the
BREEAM International Bespoke 2010
certification scheme, and has obtained in
February 2014 the BREEAM Excellent (4-star)
standards. Additionally, an extensive
thermal modeling analysis has concluded that
this bio-climatic house will enable
achieving throughout the year (and compared
to a typical inefficient house built to the
current local way of building):
- A decrease of 38% in the total number of
overheating hours (above 28C)
- A decrease in 79% in the coldest hours
(below 17C)
- A decrease in 50% in the total energy
consumption of the house; and 36% in the CO2
emissions associated with running it
- An estimated annual energy consumption of
20 kWh/m2
Design and Construction Team
Architectural Consultant
Maha Nasrallah architects
Sustainability Consultant
EcoConsulting
Electro-mechanical Consultant
Mecanica Design
Civil Engineer Consultant for Stone
Wael Kayyali
Stone Structure Contractor
Elie Samrani
Wood Structure
L’atelier Aziz Moussawer
Restoration Consultant
Jean-Pierre Zahar
Advisor
Marcelle Tanal
Interior Design Advisor
Tamar Hadechian
Renewable Energy Technologies
Solarnet
Kerakoll Natural Products
Hardwood Flooring Company
Green Roof
Green Studios
LED Lighting
Solmadis
Auto Natural Paint
Arcan Altern Eco
Linoleum Flooring
Armstrong
Plumber
Johny Sader
Electricians
Samir Akil & Jacques Der Sahakian
Blacksmiths
Mohammad Boulos & Issa Dada
Old Wood Carpenter
Joseph El Kai
Earth Plastering
Issa Issa
Salvaged Materials
Abou Ali
Recycled Tiles Mosaic Art
Wassim Kays
Layout & Graphics
Rabih Ibrahim
Ecologists
Arbi Sarkissian & Khaled Sleem
Green Walls
Monika Fabian
Flood Risk
Assessment
Issam BouJaoude
& Rena Karanouh
Old Ceramic Tiling
Raqqi Lattouf
Helper
Anama
Real Estate Agent
Ronald El Khoury
Photographer
Walid Rashid
Image Courtesy of Marc-Antoine Kikano |
