The project overview
Communion Architects was asked to design and deliver an exceptional house set within a sensitive, beautiful National Landscape. The Earth House design looks to respect and enhance the outstanding character, significance and natural habitat of the area.
Our proposal delivers a low-carbon building that conserves and enhances the local natural environment by creating a sustainable and enjoyable house. It provides a new home for the estate owner to retire to and enjoy the amenities of the sustainable local village. The village setting will benefit from an enhanced landscape, which will be enjoyed by those who value and enjoy the countryside immediately around the site.
We have produced a ‘multi-layered’ design that responds to the exceptional nature of the site in four key ways.
A Village House
The house is designed to be integral to the character, buildings, lanes and watercourses of the historic village it sits within. The village is set within rolling open countryside, a setting partly defined by the views towards a local wood. You can often find the village buildings backdropped against this impressive landform.
A View House
The house is designed around the exceptional views of the surrounding National Landscape. It is easy to forget that the site’s openness is not naturally occurring – the whole landscape has been made over time. Part of this landscape is an open field with a long view through to the local hill. Initially there was much discussion about how the development might provide an ‘enhancement’ to this view. In the end, this has become a key aspect of the scheme and has been very carefully considered.
A Landscape House
This project aims to maintain views while enhancing the experience of walking through the National Landscape. A major part of the beauty of National Landscapes is the use of local materials for buildings within it. Our aim was to use local materials to build a house that enhances the surrounding natural topography while also being hidden by that topography. The question is how, in our modern machine age, can we provide this while reflecting our current time. This project will do this in the following ways:
Earth walls
The two key walls will be formed using rammed earth construction. This method literally takes the ground from the local landscape and rams it into shutters to form an earth wall. This is entirely consistent with the nature of the vernacular architecture, while being true to our contemporary age.
Local timber
The estate woodlands will provide timber walls, floors and furniture. The estate’s forestry and landscape has been sustainably managed ever since its formation. Therefore local trees will be used in the construction as part of this management.
Local quarrying
The estate has been able to open up its own quarry. This does not provide building stone but can provide a supply of gravel for the construction of road sub-bases.
Local craft and tradespeople
Our approach means most materials will come from the site itself. However, materials are obviously only part of a building construction. The second part is the use of local craft and tradespeople. To enable this, the project will place a boundary on how far workers can travel. As Communion is a local company, we are confident that the vast majority of tradespeople will come from the county.
Insulation
Due to the large area of walls and glazing, we will use extremely high insulation levels within each of the floors, roofs, walls and windows. Products developed over the last 20 years make this task much easier.
Airtightness
The passive nature of the project ensures a low number of air changes in the house (under one air change per hour), controlled by a mechanical heat exchange unit. This means fresh air is available to all internal spaces, with stale air extracted whilst recovering its heat, minimising energy wasted through ventilation.
Heat and light
Energy will be provided by an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP), supported by photovoltaic generation combined with battery technology, which will convert daylight into electricity to be stored in batteries.
Water
Rainfall will clean the water through natural filtration and settlement. The project will use a swale – a sustainable drainage tool that will help prevent flash floods in and around the site.
Areas of additional woodland will also be planted by the estate. This will mean that over its lifetime, the woodland will capture more carbon from the atmosphere than both the building and running of the house will ever involve. Taken as a whole these strategies will provide a low energy, carbon-negative scheme based on local materials and building expertise, that will not put pressure on the global climate emergency. Overall, this will be a house of the landscape, for the landscape.
A Fusion House
While everyday design focuses on practical matters, more considered design draws on wider cultural references. When considering how to fuse natural and rural domestic needs, architects often cite Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. It is considered to be a ‘perfect’ house for fusing nature and architecture. Our project also fuses an incredibly special site with a carefully considered design that enhances the immediate and wider National Landscape.
This will be achieved through an enriched landscape, improved drainage and a significant investment into the local economy. The project will further support the estate’s long-appreciated positive impact on the village. Finally, we will provide a significant piece of sustainable rural architecture for Herefordshire and the National Landscape. Overall, this house will fuse light and views, field and gardens, footpaths and flora and fauna, earth and sky, streams and drainage.
The intended outcome
We have sought to design a house that protects and enhances the site through layer upon layer of careful, considered design. Our design strategies address the exceptional landscape, village character, plan form, construction techniques, energy use, views and light of the project. Taken as a whole, we will deliver a very low energy, carbon-negative, ecologically enriching house that will truly conserve and enhance this unique part of Herefordshire for those who live and work locally, as well as those who enjoy visiting from near or far.
