THE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY DESIGN CONCEPT

A DESIGN CONCEPT FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT

The Villa Santai is fully integrated into the surroundings using living lawns as insulation for energy conservation* and using water retaining, water recycling and water conservation concepts to insure a minimal or even a positive environmental impact.

First and foremost, in the conception for the Villa Santai were water retaining tanks to catch the abundant rainfalls and as an obvious second, a water recycling biotope was a definite must. In addition to these two points, there is also a river running along one border of the land, which is only there in the wet season and runs dry as soon as the rains stop, so damming the river with the result of retaining 420 cubic meters of water was the third point in the construction plan.

The resulting Water Recycling System and the dammed river combined, retain app 500 m3 of water. Under the terracing surrounding the pool are three further retaining tanks with a total volume of 300 m3, one of which (app 50 cubic meters) is equipped with a mineralizing filter, turning the tap water in the kitchen and master bedroom into drinking water. Behind the main building under the forecourt is a further retaining tank of app 100 m3 of water, bringing the total volume of retained and recycled water to 900 m3.

All the wastewater from the villa is piped into the water recycling biotope and can be reused again for watering the garden and the lawn roofs. At the bottom of the garden, before the terraced retaining walls for the Waste Water Recycling Biotope and the dammed river begin, there is a drainage system in place to take up the excess rainwater during the rainy season, which under extreme conditions can cause the earth to become ‘soggy' and may cause a landslide. With the drainage system in place this is avoided.

* Lawn covered roofs are an extremely effective filter for noise reduction from passing motorcycles, cars and trucks etc.