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lison and Jonathan Berry have embraced multi-generational living, with their larch-clad contemporary one-bedroom bungalow just a short stroll up a neat sleeper- edged gravel path from the large 1960s four- bedroom house where their son, George, 29, his wife, Ashleigh, 28, and their own children, seven-year-old twins Norah and Grace, and Harry, two, live. They have named their new home ‘Mtendre House,’ which means ‘peace’ in Chichewa, the language spoken in Malawi. Alison (who’s 56) explains: “Jonathan’s late father used to go there a lot, and Jonathan thought that this would be a meaningful thing to do.” The Berrys own a family business repairing gearboxes and transmission systems for lorries, which is also based on the six-acre plot. They had an aim to build their own home which was designed to maximise every centimetre of its 50.4 m2


internal space and


to provide high-performance energy-saving standards. They also wanted to be on hand as the children grow up; Alison and Jonathan were already used to being in close proximity to the next generations. “We lived in a motorhome on the grounds for about four years,” Alison explains. “We bought it to go travelling around the UK, exploring Scotland and the rest of Yorkshire.” However, Jonathan’s mother, Elaine, who originally owned the main house, had an accident and suffered a gradual deterioration of her health. So her son and daughter-in-law decided to set up a home in their motorhome in the garden so they could be on hand to help, but each party could retain their independence.


68 www.sbhonline.co.uk


When Elaine died a couple of years later, Jonathan and Elaine asked their son George if he would like to move into the main house with his young family. Having already sold their own family home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, they eventually began to formulate a plan to build their own new permanent home, with the proceeds of the sale helping to fund the project. But first they needed an architect, and found


Paul Testa and his team at HEM Architects in Sheffield on Google. Alison says: “We were keen on finding someone who would be happy to go down the environmentally-friendly route, and being in Sheffield [15 miles away] he wasn’t too far away from us either.” Paul, whose award- winning practice has a strong reputation for creating family-friendly low-energy houses and extensions and retrofitting existing houses, was up for the challenge. He took the approach of building the house as an annexe, designing a single-storey, “very low-impact building” as it would meet the criteria for permitted development rights. Paul didn’t do a specific thermal model, but followed HEM’s standard best practice. He believes that this project is performing as well as most Passivhaus builds. His major regret is that if he was building it now, he would likely specify an air source heat pump, rather than the gas boiler. “The annexe was constructed using a high-


performance timber frame and an Eternit fibre cement roof,” he explains. “We used breathable wood fibre insulation to make the construction as efficient as possible. The wood fibre is heavier than most other insulation, meaning the building stays cooler in periods of hot weather.”


mar/apr 2023


HIGH POINT


Our first eening in the finished home, and the kids running up the path, shouting ‘Grandma, Grandad!’” – Alison


LOW POINT


“The mess of the ground- works, and the delays of materials arriving on site – which was due to either Brexit or Covid” – Alison


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