Passive House & Wellness
Charlotte of the Upper West Side sets a new benchmark for sustainable architecture with an emphasis on wellness and luxury. Intelligently designed and engineered, with integrated state-of-the-art building systems designed to boost residents’ health, wellbeing, safety, and comfort, these homes are good for the environment and good for you and your family.
Airtight Envelope
The building’s architects, engineers, and development team went to extraordinary lengths to pursue Passive House certification. Robust insulation and airtight seals minimize air leaks and drafts, keeping rooms consistently comfortable and quiet while significantly reducing energy consumption.
The crisp, museum-quality glass offers maximum daylight and views with added protection from dust and street noise.
The windows are up to four times more energy-efficient than standard residential windows, providing constant year-round indoor temperatures. Window panes stay warm to the touch on even the coldest winter days and cool on very hot summer days.
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Louvers
A terra-cotta louver system outside the floor-to-ceiling
windows of the building’s Columbus Avenue facade helps keep the kitchen-living-dining room bright and comfortable all year long.
In summer, the custom baguette-shaped louvers deflect the heat of the high-angled sun’s rays while still allowing sunlight to brighten the indoors.
In winter, the low-angled sun passes between the louvers, bringing in welcome warmth and light during the colder months of the year.
Ventilation
The benefits of good indoor air quality include reduced respiratory problems, better sleep, higher productivity, and a general feeling of wellbeing. While most buildings have indoor air quality that is 10 times worse than the air outside, at Charlotte of the Upper West Side, every residence has its own individual high-performance ventilation system with separate ducts to make the air inside your home as comfortable and as clean as possible. In comparison, most newly constructed properties are typically outfitted with a single ventilation system for the entire building.
The state-of-the-art, Swiss-engineered energy recovery ventilation (ERV) system is engineered to deliver fresh filtered outside air to each room of your home, repeatedly exchanging stale indoor air with fresh air from outside. It is well documented that better air quality means greater productivity during the day and better sleep at night.
120%
At the touch of a button on a smartphone app, residents can adjust the amount of air flowing into their home, boosting fresh air up to 120 percent above the building’s already superior fresh air flow.
Each residence has its own state-of-the-art, Swiss-engineered energy recovery ventilation (ERV) system that delivers fresh filtered outside air to each room of the home, repeatedly exchanging stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air.
13-28x
The ERV system exchanges your home’s entire volume of indoor air with freshly filtered outdoor air 13 times per day in normal-use mode. In boost mode, air is exchanged more than 28 times.
The system also maintains constant indoor temperatures
and humidity levels year-round.
In summer, ERV units remove moisture from warm, humid outside air before mixing it with outgoing conditioned air.
In winter, the system transfers heat from outgoing air as it mixes with cold fresh air from outside.
Air Filtration
High-efficiency state-of-the-art filtration will purify the incoming fresh air entering each residence’s individual ventilation system, removing irritants and allergens including tobacco smoke, pollen, fine dust, and pet dander. Afterwards, UV light is used to eliminate nearly all viruses, bacteria, mold, and fungi. The dual strategy for eliminating external contaminants creates unparalleled indoor air quality.
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The UV system has been engineered into all of the fresh air, ERV, and residential HVAC units in the entire building, including all common areas, with remote sensors to detect bulb outages. UV light is applied on the supply side of the units, which dramatically reduces or eliminates biological contaminant buildup on the heat-exchange fins and ductwork. This results in even cleaner air, with high long-term operational efficiency.
Sound Insulation
The residences are remarkably quiet, thanks to robust
insulation on exterior walls and triple-layered windows that virtually eliminate outside noise. Many spaces, including secondary bedrooms, have quadruple layers of high-performance acoustically insulated QuietRock drywall. Robust insulation between residences minimize floor-to-floor sound transmission.
Low or No VOC
Non-toxic interior materials and finishes boost indoor air
quality throughout the residences by reducing or eliminating the off-gassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Reducing VOCs, which can cause allergies, ear, nose, and throat irritation, headaches, and even damage to the kidneys, liver, and central nervous system, creates a more comfortable and healthier environment for residents.
FSC Standards
Charlotte of the Upper West Side is crafted entirely with
sustainably sourced materials. All wood flooring, doors, window frames, wood trims, and millwork, including custom Henrybuilt kitchens and bathroom vanities, are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as meeting its worldwide standards of environmentally and socially responsible forest management.