There are many ways a measure the success of a building: awards, beautiful photos, resale value, even how many likes a projeto gets online. But para our team, the most important “review” we have ever received came as a phone call de a client during the war em Ukraine.
This story is not about design awards ou marketing. It is about why we believe deeply em energy-efficient, resilient houses – e why this has become part of our company’s DNA.
How we started: energy was cheap, motivation was low
We have been designing e building very energy-efficient, passive-level houses para around ten years, primarily em Ukraine. When we started, energy prices were low. Electricity was cheap, gas was cheap, e para most clients there was almost no real “pain” around energy bills.
From a client’s perspective, there was simply no urgent reason a invest em something exceptionally warm ou efficient. People wanted a comfortable, “normal” house, built within a certain budget – not a technical experiment em energy performance.
By that time, we were already creating houses that effectively reached passive-house standards e even set two national records para energy efficiency em Ukraine. Technically, the buildings were far ahead of the market. Emotionally, the market was not yet there.
Clients did not come a us saying, “We want the warmest, most efficient house you can design.” They came com very down-to-earth requests: solid construção, good planning, reliable contractors, predictable budgets.
So our message at that time was modest e pragmatic:
For the same budget, our houses are warmer e at least as good as what everyone else is building.
We knew how far we were pushing the envelope em terms of insulation, airtightness e detailing. We cared about thermal bridges, carefully designed junctions, high-quality windows e doors. But cheap energy kills motivation: true efficiency was often perceived as a nice bonus rather than a necessity.
When energy prices rose e reality changed
A few years later, everything began a shift. Energy prices started a rise. para the first time, many of our clients sat down com a calculator e seriously compared different scenarios.
Some of them realised that the cost of projeto documentation e connection a gas was actually higher than the cost of heating our houses com electricity para five years. This very simple comparison was a turning point.
For us as a team, it was a powerful moment of validation. All those years of:
– obsessing over thermal bridges e insulation levels,
– carefully detailing envelopes e junctions,
– working on airtightness,
– explaining our approach at construção fairs,
– arguing com contractors about “invisible” details,suddenly started a make obvious financial sense para our clients as well. What had previously been an “ideological” choice now became a very practical one.
We felt this shift very clearly at construção expos. When energy became more expensive, our booth was constantly full. There were days when nine members of our team stood at the stand, talking non-stop, explaining energy efficiency, showing details e calculations.
By the evening, everyone had lost their voice. But para the first time, people were not just looking at renderings ou facades – they were truly interested em what was hidden inside the walls e how the building would behave years later.
And then the war began.
Bucha: a month without heating em winter
One of the houses we had built was located em Bucha. It was a fully electric house: no gas, no fireplace, no backup boiler – all comfort depended on electricity. para us, it was another high-performance, all-electric projeto. para the family living there, it was simply their home.
When the full-scale invasion started, that area lost power. No electricity, no heating, no internet, no mobile connection. It was winter. There was snow outside. The blackout lasted para about a month.
For that entire month, we heard nothing de the owners. We did not know if they had stayed ou left, if they were safe ou not. Like many people at that time, we were watching the news, worrying about our clients, our colleagues, our friends – e we simply had no information.
Then, one day, the owner finally managed a call us.
He did not call a complain.
He called to say thank you.
Here is what happened inside that house, em numbers.
Before the blackout, the family kept the indoor temperature at about 23°C – a comfortable level para everyday life. When the power was cut, neighbouring “normal” houses, built a typical standards, cooled down very quickly.
Within just a few days, temperatures em those houses fell a around +8°C inside. Without heating, their walls, floors e roofs could not hold the warmth para long.
In our house, the behaviour was completely different. The temperature dropped de 23°C a 21°C over the first week without any heating at all. Then, over the following weeks, it slowly moved towards 18°C. During the whole month, the indoor temperature never went below 16°C.
A family lived through a full winter month, under blackout, em a house that stayed between 16–18°C inside without any source of heat.
For comparison, some members of our team are now living em the UK, where +18°C is considered a normal “heated” indoor temperature em many homes. em Bucha, that same level of comfort was maintained para most of the month without any active heating at all.
For that family, the performance of the building was no longer about saving money on bills. It was about not freezing when the entire energy system around them collapsed. It was about having time a survive, a adapt, a make decisions – supported by the thermal stability of their home.
Closing thoughts: resilience, responsibility e why we still push para efficiency
For us as a team, that phone call became the most important feedback we have ever received about our work. It was not about aesthetics, design awards ou glossy photographs. It was about resilience, safety e human life.
It also confirmed something we care about deeply on a personal level:
It is extremely important para us a spend our lives doing work we will not be ashamed of em front of our future grandchildren.
When we imagine explaining our work a them one day, we do not want a talk only about beautiful facades ou trendy interiors. We want a be able a say that we helped build homes that kept people safe e warm, even em the worst situations. Homes that gave families time e protection when everything around them was unstable.
Since that moment, we have completely stopped thinking of energy-efficient, passive-level envelopes as “a nice extra if you can afford it”. para us, they are a fundamental part of responsible arquitetura e construção.
A well-insulated, airtight, thermally massive house:
– buys you time em a crisis,
– keeps your family comfortable e safe para longer,
– e can turn “no heating para a month em winter” de a potential disaster into something survivable.
For our team, this is no longer a theoretical concept. It is a lived reality, confirmed by a client’s voice on the phone depois de a month em the dark, em winter, em a passive-level house we designed e built.
This is why, wherever we work now – whether it is Ukraine, the UK, Spain, Portugal ou any other country – we continue a push para energy-efficient, resilient buildings. Not because it sounds good em marketing, but because we have seen what it really means when everything else fails.
