LILAC, Leeds: Low Impact Living Affordable Community February 5, 2013

LILAC is a new co-housing eco-development in urban west Leeds (Bramley), Britain. It is particularly interesting because it is using straw bale, it is accessible (the definition of which I will return to), affordable, grassroots, collective, and (sub)urban. There are 12 flats, 8 houses and a communal house, building work is advancing at a pace and they hope to move in during spring 2013.

View of the site from the road in Bramley, west Leeds

LILAC grew from many years of discussions and a desire for an eco-village type settlement in Leeds. In addition to being ecological it was important for the founders that any development was urban – enabling them to travel easily to work in the city without cars – and that it was affordable – few had the capital to invest in expensive housing. As logical as this may seem, few eco-developments have really achieved this in Britain with most new community builds tending to be in more rural spaces and despite best efforts most required a significant capital investment (or large mortgage).

Community and communal space

The community and communal aspects of living were also central; notably trying to ensure that delicate balance between providing enough privacy and enabling people to share resources, space and social lives. Hence the co-housing model was adopted whereby people have individual homes (and in this case a small outside space), but share a communal house, larger gardens, play areas, and laundry facilities. Community agreements to manage responsibility and expectations are still being developed but are likely to involve a community contribution expectation of two hours a week (with board members devoting four hours a week). This is actually very low in comparison to other projects I have visited and reflects an approach at LILAC that has carefully considered the workload implications of community living. For example, rather than plant the communal gardens with labour-intensive annals, there are plans to use lots of perennial planting (such as fruit trees) in order to reduce maintenance time and tasks.

Their community house is also much bigger than other examples I have seen, it has a large light meeting area, a nice kitchen, a couple of office spaces, large film showing space, bathroom and shower. Crucially it has been built on the edge of the site so that it is directly accessible from the street and forms a welcoming way into the community. Given its size and location it is likely to become the hub of this new community and it is easy to see the potential for other local groups to use it as a meeting place too.

Building design and function

The buildings are designed by the architects White Design and it is the first residential building to use the Modcell approach. The method involved building wooden frames and packing them full of straw bale. All this is done in a local ‘flying factory’ (a temporary local space where the panels are assembled) and then joined together onsite (a bit like flat pack building). It creates straight block walls and most of the windows are floor to ceiling – giving huge views and a range of light inside.

Modcell have tested this approach and already proved its high ecological credentials, so I have little doubt that the development will achieve its aims of low carbon emissions, low energy bills, low embedded carbon and a long-lasting build. What has yet to be seen is how it will feel to live in the buildings. They could be likened to office buildings; very angular, straight and boxy. It is an interesting aesthetic which is very hard to judge at this stage without occupancy or landscaping, and could be considerably softened by both. Moreover, how furniture, storage and people fit into the space is yet to be seen.

 

Rendering the straw bale panel walls and inside an almost completed house with floor to ceiling windows

There is also an interesting disjuncture between what makes a building ecological and what makes it pleasant to live in. For example, in the communal house, there is an office on the north side of the building. Because it is on the north side there are very few windows, in fact most are up high and thus difficult to look out from. When I visited with some residents they immediately worried that the room was going to be too dark. But if they added in windows it would change the ecological performance of the building. So is the office missing a window or is the office in the wrong part of the building?

As with all new builds some parts of the design are really inspiring. They have used the hall space in the apartment buildings for spare rooms. It is a really interesting idea. It is a tiny space, just enough for a double bed, but it is private and cosy and is clearly going to be really useful. At the same time, I wonder how other, really small things, might work. There are some interesting problematic locations of window latches. In the upstairs bedrooms (whole, floor to ceiling length windows), two sections open, but I would struggle to reach the top one, despite being tall (5ft 10 inches). In the bathrooms there is a row of windows right at the top of the wall – I could not reach the latches. Not only will this make it inconvenient to use, but will probably reduce people’s use of them and reduce the airing of the building, which in turn could lead to mould issues. However, I am sure there is a simple solution and it is perhaps no more problematic than when I installed ceiling windows that only opened using a turning mechanism – impossible to do from a 10ft distance! In other words, it is always so easy to come in and critique someone else’s building.

Accessibility

LILAC have thought quite a lot about accessibility in all its forms – encouraging a diverse range of residents, ensuring disabled access, designing in affordability, choosing a suburban location (and inviting local residents to engage with eco-housing), and thinking about how the community will run on a very practical level. It is really nice to see a project where there are clearly many different people of all ages going to be living there. The houses and flats are all different sizes, catering for single occupants with one bedroom flats up to families with four bedrooms.

First foor of houses being built

Disability has also been planned for. All the doors are disabled access and will have flush and smooth entrances (low thresholds). Thus all ground floor flats have disabled access. The community house has a lift, which means that they can access all areas, including a shower and bathroom area. However, there is no lift in the apartment blocks, so there is no disabled access to the spare rooms or higher flats. This might all seem logical and certainly many new developments employ the standards of Lifetime Homes to ensure accessibility, but all too often eco-developments abandon accessible designs due to cost and many eco-developments remain the preserve of the young and able-bodied, with little consideration for how people will remain in their homes as they age.

Affordability has also always been central to the plans for LILAC and they have achieved this by developing a model whereby regardless of which size accommodation you live in you pay 35% of your net income for your home. This is paid as a form of rent, but actually residents are slowly buying their home through share purchase (or equity stakes). Once they have bought it their payments reduce and the money is used for communal good. In an era of high house prices, rising rents and falling incomes, this ratio of accommodation costs seems particularly appealing. It has taken LILAC considerable work to develop this system and ensure that it is financially robust and allows for residents to leave and join the community. It still requires a deposit and still enables those with more money to afford bigger properties, but it is one of the few eco-developments to take the issue of affordability seriously, further details are available at: http://www.lilac.coop/concept/affordable.html.

LILAC has yet to be completed but has already generated significant media and political interest. It is certainly a ground-breaking project and they are hopeful that others will be inspired and adopt some of the approaches (such as the affordability model) that they have developed. They are also conducting post occupancy research and have already run workshops to share what they have learnt with others. I have no doubt that LILAC will become not just a great place to live, but a role model for community eco-building for years to come.

For more information about LILAC see their great website: http://www.lilac.coop/, also Paul Chatterton, one of the founders of the project, has recently published an academic journal article on LILAC; Chatterton, P (2013) Towards an agenda for post-carbon cities: Lessons from LILAC, the UK’s first ecological, affordable, cohousing community. International Journal for Urban and Regional Research . ISSN 0309-1317.

[Written by Jenny Pickerill (February 2013) using information based on a site visit in November 2012 and informal discussions with founders of LILAC]

Best books on eco-housing August 29, 2012

Having just spent the last two months reading about eco-housing I have compiled a list of what I consider to be the best books about housing, home and eco-housing. These books encompass a broad interest in the physical architectural design of an eco-house, alongside the important social elements of how people live together and communities function.

Follow a journey through worldwide eco-projects August 23, 2012

I have just come across a great site (IM)PERMANACE: global solutions for perninial living, which is documenting a families trip around the world visiting and teaching permaculture projects. Some of the places they are visiting overlap with places I have posted here, but there are so many more as well.

Their “Mission is to travel 40 000 miles overland through 40 countries, creating a free online documentary series about all aspects of truly abundant, healthy and integrative ways of living, farming and meeting our needs locally to share with you and the world in this time of great transition! (IM)PERMANENCE is a co- created film project realising open source learning resources for the world- from the people to the people!”

Their site is packed full of amazing commentary and photographs. I recommend a visit.

The Triangle Housing Project, Swindon, UK June 28, 2012

The Triangle Housing Project (Swindon UK) was designed by Glenn Howells Architects  and was the vision of Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs fame. His aim was to build beautiful, contemporary, affordable, sustainable homes and still make money. He wanted to put into practice his ideology that housing should be a combination of Happiness, Architecture and Beauty (HAB Housing). In order to make it affordable McCloud worked with a housing Association (GreenSquare) who intended to sell some properties and retain others for rental.

 

The Triangle is a 42-home development with a variety of properties from one bedroom to four bedrooms. Completed 2011 its progress and ambitions were documented for ‘Kevin’s Grand Design TV series’ on Channel 4 (in the UK). In other words, this was a developer-led project aiming to incorporate many approaches already tested in more radical self-built housing, but rarely in large-scale British developments.

The project tried to do many things differently to a standard British housing development: it tried to make well-built eco-houses affordable; implemented novel design features to ‘mass’ housing (ventilation chimneys); used new materials (hempcrete); made the houses very small and open plan; and built large communal space. The hempcrete was grown locally and used for the external walls, and rooms were given higher ceilings to enable more light to flood small rooms and make then feel bigger. Individual gardens were small but a large communal garden was put into community trust ownership and people encouraged to grow food collectively. Overall, 50% of land is for sharing. Overall, the aim of this development was to build low-impact, low-carbon, and high-value houses.

Did it work? Maybe it is still too early to tell but the results are a bit mixed so far. This is not to say there is still not a great deal of inspiration to be taken from this project and its novelties were always bound to attract the critics. It is definitely a test case. On the one hand the design has certainly won lots of awards. On the other hand plans to sell the properties had to be put on hold because they would not have been able to sell them at a price low enough to have been considered affordable, in other words, they ultimately cost more than Kevin McCloud had hoped. According to reports so far many residents (all rental) really like it. However, some were mistakes were made. In the TV series following the development it became obvious that no one from the design team had thought to consult potential residents on what they needed or wanted. One new resident said to McCloud that he ‘had needed a woman’s perspective’ to point out that they had failed to design in any space for storage, which with lots of children was proving problematic. Neighbours were also not convinced by the higher-than-average height of the new houses which consequently towered over their existing homes.

The main problem appears to be the lack of quality building work. In a recent BBC Online article ‘Defects at Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud’s homes‘, residents complained of water leaks, cracked walls and ceilings, and broken rainwater harvesters. The architects are putting the blame squarely at the door of the builders describing their work as ‘bad building. There are hardly any design issues there, it’s to do with the quality of the building works’. That said McCloud himself had been shocked at the low budget allocated for each kitchen. At just £900 per kitchen he had worried that the kitchens had looked and felt too cheap. As to whether these are teething problems that all buildings go through, or a more fundamental problem is not yet clear. However, the situation does highlight the expectation and, I would argue, the need for eco-houses especially to be well constructed. Without good seals and well-fit windows, for example, the design features of houses such as this are easily undermined.

For more information about the development there is an interesting review in  The Architects Journal about Triangle, and a brochure about the project.

[June 2012]

Volunteers needed for green build project in Mozambique June 12, 2012

A small environmental education and marine research association in Zavora, southern Mozambique are seeking to build a new centre using eco-friendly techniques with limited financial resources. They are going to use earth bricks, glass bottles and cocconut wood. They are looking for volunteers, peferably with some experience or expertise in eco-building, to help them complete the project. They are looking for volunteers to spend at least a month between now and November later this year. Please pass onto other lists or sites as appropriate.

[Click the image for a larger view]

Background information about the project

Volunteer application form

[12th June 2012]

Earthship Biotecture, near Taos, New Mexico, USA May 17, 2012

Standing on top of an Earthship in the New Mexico desert watching the sunset turn the mountains a deep red, makes you realise how boring conventional housing is. Earthships are a highly inventive and unusual house design by Mike Reynolds who spent years experimenting in the New Mexico deserts. There are now hundreds of examples worldwide but I wanted to come to the place of their inception to try and understand their possibilities and questions around affordability.

Sunset view from top of an earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

An Earthship is an autonomous building made from car tyres filled with waste (such as drinks cans and bottles) to produce highly insulating walls. The Earthship has been replicated in the UK (Fife and Brighton), Holland, France, South Africa and India. There are now 3,000 Earthships globally. The design, often built into the ground, not only uses recycled and natural materials, but by using passive solar heating (and cooling), water harvesting, contained sewage treatment, and internal food production (through conservatories), creates a self-sustaining building with a stable ambient temperature even in climatic extremes. Built to be cheap, efficient and autonomous, Earthships represent radical ecological architecture designed to reshape our relation to the environment and our daily lifestyles.

“The Earthship concept is meant to place shelter and a less stressful method of living within the immediate grasp of people. If land is made available for no profit; if shelter can be obtained with little or no mortgage payment; if utilities come free from the sky; if much of our food can be grown in our homes; people will become more mobile with their thinking. They will begin to have time to think of each other and the planet” (Reynolds, 1990, p.254)

 

An Earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

There is a great sense of freedom from knowing that a house has everything you need to survive without needing to be connected to anything else. All the systems are holistic and autonomous. Standing on the roof I am next to the water cistern which collects the rainwater, and overlooking the PV panels and solar thermal hot water heater. Moreover all resources are used as efficiently as possible, for example, rainwater is used three times – for drinking, to flush the toilet and then to water plants. Having stayed in one at the height of summer I can also confidently confirm that it works – nice and cool during the day, warm at night and not too dark inside. Such autonomy also enables the resident to more clearly understand how houses work – if you are not careful you will use up all your water – and thus, potentially, how to look after and fix it.

Inside the studio earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

By watching the sunset you also realise that Earthships enable a landscape without wires. Look out of your door – do you see wires? Most houses are linked by electricity and telephone cables criss-crossing the landscape, but here there is only sky: huge big open skies. It is a liberating view compared to most outlooks from houses. In New Mexico all you can really see of the houses are the windows reflecting the sunlight. It is a very calming view.

Phoenix Earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

Earthships are more than simply highly integrated autonomous houses, they are amongst the most radical and inventive green buildings I have seen. So inventive that new systems, such as water and power management systems, have been designed specifically for them. But they do have an unusual aesthetic, they do not look anything like a house as conventionally understood – buried in the ground, glass wall to the south, curved walls inside, and glass bottle walls. This of course potentially limits wider adoption. Personally I find them rather beautiful buildings to look at, but then I already love eco-houses and all things quirky. Replication is not only limited by how they look however, but also by their requirement for manual management (such as opening vents and closing blinds) which in an age of ‘on demand’ heating and air conditioning puts some people off.

The houses were designed to be highly replicable, and Reynolds has gone to great effort to build demonstration houses around the world and to create plans and ‘off-the-peg’ designs which can be purchased and followed. The use of the metaphor of the ‘ship’ in its name also signifies that such designs should be replicated elsewhere (that the ideas should travel, they were designed to run without fuel, use rubbish and thus locate anywhere); that these ships should be part of a broader network (that we should exchange and develop these ideas); that ideas need freedom to enable experimentation and radical innovation (the ship as autonomous and free from regulations); and, finally, that they will “sail on the seas of tomorrow” (Reynolds, quoted in Paschich and Hendricks, 1995, 73) (and thus continue to travel into the future).

Yet this replication has not happened in the way that might have been imagined. The design is robust, tested and cheap and yet few Earthships exist. In addition to how they look and what it is like to live in them, they are not the easiest to build – they require time and effort (and strength and perseverance) in a way that brick houses do not. Finally, they are not appropriate for all places, they have been developed to work best in the climate of New Mexico and as the Brighton Earthship has shown, if changes are not made to the design when built in other climates then they do not work as well (in Brighton the floor is rather cold). This could be overcome, but only with further experimentation and the freedom to adapt Reynolds designs.

 

Inside the studio earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

Earthships can be built expensively or cheaply, it all depends on choices made by the builder. They are designed to be extremely low-cost to run, but to make the actual build cost lower then there is a need for self-build (using your own labour, also called ‘sweaty equity’), build on cheap land (hence the growth of such houses in the deserts of New Mexico), use waste materials (there are some plans for Earthships using concrete), ignore building codes, and keep the design simple and small scale (thus ‘designing down’ the house so that you need less electricity in everyday running). Reynolds argues that “just as the sun allows no darkness, the lake allows no dryness, the wind allows no calm, the river no silence … the Earthship allows no poverty” (1993). However, some have complained at the high cost of the step-by-step designs to build an Earthship.

An Earthship at the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico, USA

There are many lessons to be learnt from Earthships which could be, and should be, applied to eco-housing elsewhere. It is a bold design that works: the result of years of practical experimentation and radical innovation. Whether it is about their autonomy, low cost, low visual impact, self-build nature, or the way in which every resource is carefully harvested and used multiple times, we need to understand and learn from Earthships. The strongest memory for me is of sitting on the roof watching the sunset knowing that I would be warm and cosy that night, that there was amble water and heat for a shower, and that the environmental cost of all that comfort was minimal. It was a guilt free sunset.

There is a Visitors Centre at the Earthships near Taos (#2 Earthship Way Taos NM 87571) which is open 10am to 4 pm, 7 days a week.

 

Key references about Earthships:

Freney, M (2009) Earthships: Sustainable housing alternative. International Journal of Sustainable Design, 1, 2, 223-240.

Harkness, R (2011) Earthships: The homes that trash built. Anthropology Now, 3, 1, 54-66

Hewitt, M and Telfer, K (2007) Earthships: Building a zero carbon future for homes. HIS BRE Press, Watford

Hodge, O (2008) Garbage Warrior (Film). A Co Production of Open Eye Media UK, ITVS International & Sundance Channel.

Ip, K and Miller, A (2009) Thermal behaviour of an earth-sheltered autonomous building – The Brighton Earthship. Renewable Energy, 34, 9, 2037-2034

Kemp, S and Cowie, P (2004) The Earthship Toolkit: Your Guide to Building a Zero Waste, Zero Energy Future. Sustainable Communities Initiatives, Kinghorn.

Paschich, E and Hendricks, P (1995) The Tire House Book. Sunstone Press, New Mexico.

Reynolds, M (2000) Comfort in any climate. Solar Survival Architecture, Taos, NM.

Reynolds, M (2005) Water from the sky. Solar Survival Print, Taos, NM.

Reynolds, M. (1990) Earthship Volume I. One Solar Survival Press, Taos, NM

Reynolds, M. (1993) Earthship Volume III. One Solar Survival Press, Taos, NM

NEW REPORT: Low Impact Communities in Britain March 27, 2012

I have recently given several talks around Britain about how we can encourage the building of more low impact communities. I have collated the talks into a short report on the topic, available here as a PDF: Low impact communities in Britain.

The report identifies three key types of barrier to low impact communities: political, economic and cultural, and outlines what these barriers entail and some possible solutions. It also outlines four different case studies, and some other issues which are important to consider when encouraging eco-housing. Finally, the report outlines common pitfalls and the best way to successfully build low impact communities, which I argue involves:

1. Use hybrid materials or straw bale
2. Have a mutual housing ownership or a rental model
3. Build collectively
4. Have a pioneer and a risk taker driving project
5. Share key infrastructure, by having a co-housing organisational structure
6. Build on ‘marginal’ land or remove land from the market mechanism
7. Build small with an open plan design
8. Use locally available materials
9. Minimise use of technology
10. Plan long-term maintenance
11. Establish strong community agreements
12. Have a good simple passive design

 Please share the report freely and I would welcome any comments.

[27th March, Leicester]

Map of low impact communities in Britain March 19, 2012

I have produced a map of the location of a broad selection of low impact communities in Britain. This is useful to help us see the sheer variety and growth of these communities, and also to understand how they are clustering in certain places. These are all actually existing projects which have been completed except for LILAC (Leeds), which is in the process of being built.

For the purpose of this map I have defined low impact communities as constituting those projects which:

1. Seek autonomy and self reliance, and thus seek to generate all that they need
2. Often have mixed goals but tend to include becoming more socially, economically and ecologically sustainable
3. That tend to share values. Thus some are intentional communities, others less so, but most have community agreements by which all occupants agree to abide
4. That the ethos is self-build and do-it-yourself
5. That are structured around living and building collectively and often include sharing communal space
6. Involve a care and consideration for others. This can include deliberately seeking to reconfigure existing relationships, such as practicing gender equality
7. Are low-cost and often build affordability for perpetuity into the long-term design
8. Can requires a change of lifestyle and/or income generation
9. Seel minimal resource use (in construction and life-cycle)
10. Have low visual impact
11. Are built from local, recycled or natural materials
12. Are often small scale

These then include rural and urban projects, despite urban projects often having less space from which to generate energy or alternative incomes. Overall such communities are concerned with much more than just the architecture, instead it is about the way people live, and live together, which is significantly more important. In terms of how these communities compare to eco-housing per se, the novelty is the way in which they bring all these different aspects together in one place.

The map is also available as a PDF here: Low Impact Communities map. Please feel free to use it, but please acknowledge its source.

I would welcome any comments, correction or additions.

[Leicester, 19th March 2012]

Learning from Lilac: Low Impact Affordable living in Leeds, Britain March 5, 2012

Apologies to those not in Britain, but there is a really interesting workshop coming up on 10th May in Leeds. Lilac stands for Low Impact Living Affordable Community. It is a member-led co-operative housing society building an affordable, cohousing community in Leeds. They are using a co-housing design approach to build 20 houses and a common house from strawbale and timber through a prefabricated product called Modcell (enabling cheap, quick, collective and local construction).

They have just started building (on a 0.7 hectare site in inner city Leeds) and there is a lot to be learnt from this project. In particular they have deliberately organised the project to remain affordable in perpetuity using a mutual home ownership model. In effect each resident pays just 35% of their net household income towards the costs of living at Lilac (and thus if you earn more you pay more). This is not just paid as rent however, all residents co-own the project (through equity shares) and as such all have a vested interest to make it work and maintain it. In order to ensure that the project was within their available budget they have had to make compromises, such as using gas as an energy source, and only aiming to achieve Level 4 of the UK Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes. This was done in part, however, to balance the energy needs of occupants with the cost limitations and is indicative of a participatory and considered approach to low impact and lost cost building.

Lilac also received a £420,000 grant from the Homes and Communities Agency (UK Government) and have funded the bulk of their initial costs through a loan from the bank Triodos.

The group have spent several years reaching this point and have spent considerable time ensuring that the process of the project was democratic and inclusive. They have developed several ‘community agreements’ which all residents have to agree to abide by and include forgoing have tumble dryers and dishwashers in their personal units, using the communal washing machines, and outlines how the communal spaces will be managed. They are also restricting the number of cars on site, insisting on car pooling and have tried to ‘design out’ carbon intensive activities. Overall, this is an exciting project and definitely one to follow. I am not personally involved, however, several of my long time friends are central to the project so I might be a little biased!

++++ Learning from Lilac: An invitation to a day workshop ++++

In association with the UK Cohousing Network (www.cohousing.org.uk)

Thursday 10th May 2012. 10am – 5pm
School of Geography, University of Leeds. University Road. Leeds. LS2 9JT.

ABOUT THE DAY
Lilac is hosting a day to share its learning to help other similar projects develop their ideas into reality. This day is aimed at those who wish to set up housing projects who have an emphasis on being – community-focused, low impact, co-operative, affordable, member-led, mutual. Topics in the morning will briefly cover:

.       The Lilac project in brief so far – key milestones, challenges, successes
.       How to go about finding land
.       Options for financing your project
.       Developing good group process and making decisions collectively
.       Attracting members
.       The Project Manager and what they will do for you
.       The Quantity Surveyor and what they will do for you
.       The Solicitor and dealing with legal issues
.       Ways forward, networking and supporting projects

Additional topics will be covered in the afternoon reflecting the interests of participants. Please use the form below to state the topics you would like to see covered (for example Lilac’s Mutual Home Ownership model, Lilac’s environmental strategy, grant finding, what is cohousing, the role of a common house).

+++ To Book your place +++

Places are limited to 30 participants. To book your place please send a cheque for £10 payable to ‘The University of Leeds’ and the booking form to: Paul Chatterton, School of Geography, University of Leeds, University Road, Leeds, LS2 9JT.

For further information about the day contact: learning@lilac.coop

[Leicester, 5th March 2012]

New self build sustainable housing scheme in Devon, UK December 21, 2011

The Land Society is setting up a new scheme in Devon (south west UK) to support local rural communities to develop energy efficient, affordable, sustainable homes. In their own words, “as part of The Land Society’s purpose of rebuilding rural economies we have identified that one major problem is the high cost of housing compared to rural wages. We are therefore working with the Community Land Trust (CLT) organisation, a regional Further Education college and Transition Town Totnes to develop Community Land Trust (CLT) developments of village self-build sustainable homes”.

This is a really interesting approach in that they are combining affordability with ecological design and training and skills required to build. It is focused not just on providing quality eco-housing, but in doing so as part of reviving rural economies. This social enterprise approach wants to avoid affordable housing being imposed on rural villages by external developers and instead wants local residents themselves to collaborate and build the houses that they need. They define ‘local residents’ as those who meet local-needs housing criteria (agreed with the local community) basically;
- children of local, long-time residents,
- have pre-school children, or children in local schools,
- work locally, especially in core/low paid services, e.g; education, healthcare, agriculture

In terms of cost they calculate that “ The cost of land, materials, training course and legal/planning will typically be about £85k, with a deposit of £5 -10k in stages, then balance payable quarterly in stages from an arranged mortgage. In addition the self-building work is valued at between £40-50,000, which becomes part of their equity in the property (or provides funds to complete the home if required). Members will typically own 60% equity in a home valued at about £225,000, and the balance will remain in the CLT for further social investment”. Although not necessarily ‘cheap’ the securing of the properties into a CLT means that they will remain available as affordable housing in the area permanently. They are not designed to be houses through which people make a profit and move on. The investment of considerable ‘sweat equity’ (working yourself to build your house) will also hopefully reduce the numbers of people who want simply to make money rather than invest time and energy in building rural communities.

In terms of design they have come up with a simple design intended specifically for self-build, which incorporates the following features:

• Advanced passive solar design incorporating very high insulation (straw bale walls and sheep’s wool roof insulation) and thermal mass (rammed earth) for very low additional heating need
• Straw bales rendered with clay have much higher fire resistance than timber framed houses, and provide excellent sound insulation.
• Locally sourced, natural materials and simple, mainly hand tools build (including gabion rather than concrete foundations)
• Adaptable with optional extras to suit individual families and site conditions
• Flexible exterior proportions and finishes to blend with local vernacular
• Designed to lifetime standards
• Heating provided by wood burning stoves and solar hot water
• Solar PV
• Either dry compost loos or reed bed system for reduced use of water and sewerage
• Rainwater harvesting
• Simple site layout with minimal hard landscaping, keeping cars to one edge

If you live in south Devon and would like to be part of this pilot project, or if you’d like to be kept informed of progress, email them at selfbuildhomes@landsociety.com