PROJECT REPORT: SOCIAL & AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Another ‘nature-first’ aspect of the scheme was hedge planting around what is already a particularly green site area hosting native English species. They have been chosen to benefit biodiversity, extending the season for flowers, and producing higher levels of nectars and berries to help wildlife. This effort has been supported and aided significantly by what Greencore claims is the first partnership between a developer and the Wildlife Trust.
Natural verticality
Looking at the houses themselves, the buildings proudly display their use of natural materials, clad in various timber species, including brimstone poplar as well as Siberian and English Larch, but also Kebony ‘modified wood’ cladding. Pritchett says there was a “very deliberate” decision to mix up the “architectural journey of the site” with different forms. Most of the homes have steeply pitched roofs throughout at 50˚, and a few have pitched roofs plus garages with flat roofs, and at the end of the site there are four large, flat-roofed, contemporary villas.
Where the roofs are pitched, they are generally terracotta coloured clay tiles, but where buyers have requested different options (on the custom built homes) – there are variations, such as one grey clay tiled house.
One thing that remains the same across all the roofs however are the extensive solar PV arrays, integrated onto the roofing rather than sitting on top of it, something which allows producing a “less jarring” design than former iterations, says Pritchett. Much like the majority of the roofs on the development, the homes’ design gives them what Pritchett describes as a “certain verticality” – the team have employed taller, narrower windows than normal – “ending up with an architecture based on portrait rather than landscape.” This is continued in the cladding strips, which are arranged vertically.
Passivhaus principles Entering the homes, the ground floors are in the main ceramic tiles plus underfloor heating. Oak staircases and joinery help to provide a contemporary, while natural feel to the interior design. Floors above rest on a cross-laminated timber base, which helped make the second phase of the project ‘carbon positive,’ as a result of sequestering significant amounts of carbon within the structure.
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In terms of heating, for an all-electric development there are relatively few heat pumps installed – only where custom-build clients have requested them. In general, the homes use direct electric heating and hot water. This is fed directly from the solar arrays on the roof, using any electricity they create in the first instance – before importing it from the grid.
Many of the homes also have batteries installed, meaning that if they aren’t using all the electricity the panels produce. The battery can be charged for later use, and then the surplus imported back to the grid – for which the grid will pay a small fee to the homeowner.
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This was a clear display of how the systems behind housing delivery have not yet caught up with the Government’s intended aims of decarbonisation
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