You are probably asking a number of questions:
Why build a Passive House in any case?
Why do the gates and railings feature tortoises?
Why do the different terraces have the names they do?

Why a Passive House?

Anke’s brother was Deputy Principal of a Technical High School in Emden, in northern Germany. As well as being a qualified teacher, he was also a Diplom Ingenieur, and had a keen interest in sustainable construction. He created several test buildings on the school grounds for his students to experiment with a range of possible heating installations, insulation, ventilation and other aspects of construction. These buildings won an award at the EXPO held in Hannover in 2000. When we told him of our intention to build a house in Montenegro, it was clear that there was no other choice but to make the house as highly sustainable and energy efficient as possible. We have long had strong opinions about the ecological damage caused by mankind to the planet, leading to inevitable disastrous climate change, so accepting the need to build a house with as low energy use as possible was an easy decision.

That led us to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Feist and his concept of optimising the physics of buildings to create comfortable, highly energy efficient buildings, embodied in the Passivhaus Institut based in Darmstadt. We became members of the Institut (and still are) and attended several of the annual conferences. There we learnt more about Passive Houses, as well as meeting suppliers of components assessed as suitable for Passive Houses.

Why Tortoises?

The first tortoise we saw on/ near our land was caught by its backside on the end of a scythe being wielded by our neighbour cutting the grass on his side of the boundary. Not knowing anything at that time about tortoises, or how to determine their sex, we called it ‘Alex’. In hindsight, given the size of the animal, ‘it’ was actually a ‘she’. She survived the experience, though it must have been extremely unpleasant.

We gave the various other tortoises which we met names in alphabetical order. One September evening in 2011 in the courtyard of the stone house which we rented in Risan before we were able to get planning permission for our house, we found a baby tortoise. There was no grass or other food anywhere within 5m, so we adopted him (knowing the difference between the sexes by this time) and called him Karl, as the next name on the list needed to start with ‘K’. He weighed 10g, and was 3.5cm long, 3cm wide.

In time Karl was joined by some other babies, interestingly all male. When we eventually moved to the newly built house in 2014, the lower terrace still had an area of earth where we created an enclosure for the group. Tortoises are excellent diggers, so we had to make sure that the wire enclosure was well dug in. We had adopted giving names to the terraces as an easy way of referring to the different levels. Logically that terrace became Karlsplatz.

Obviously the situation could not remain as it was. Tortoises are wild animals and do not belong in an enclosure. Additionally, Karl was maturing, and needing female company. From a source in Risan, we had managed to get a suitable 4 year-old female, whom we called Pru. We released them all into the wild in October 2015, specifically into a secluded patch on our neighbour’s land. We still see a tortoise on that land, usually female, though sometimes a male.

Incidentally, at the time of his release aged 4, Karl weighed 247g, and was 10.6cm long, 8.4cm wide. As a comparison, Pru was 730g, 14.6cm long, 10.9cm wide; very much larger.

In memory of Karl and his companions, and as we love tortoises, we decided to commemorate them with silhouettes on the gates and railings when we had them made.

Names for the terraces

The explanation for Karlsplatz is because of Karl the tortoise.

The top terrace of the house is named after the highest point in the town of Norderney, on the North Sea island of the same name. Anke was born on Norderney and Marienhoehe was where she used to play with her friends, including sliding down the ice onto the beach in winter.

The terrace over the garage/ workshop area is, logically (to us anyway), the Dachterrasse (Roof Terrace in English).

James lived for many years in Edinburgh, and wanted to call the terrace on the south side of the ground floor St Andrews Place, after the square of the same name in Edinburgh New Town. That proved too much of a mouthful to say too often, so it became the Scottish Terrace.