RSS FeedApr 17 2009
Organic Architecture in the UK
If you haven’t heard about the Woodland Home, and you are a tiny home/sustainable home fan, you’ve been missing out. This home built in Wales is a very interesting concept indeed.
Built by volunteers for about $5500, this tiny home looks much like something out of The Lord of the Rings films. The core concept is to build a home using as few processed materials as possible. To this end, the builders utilized a variety of techniques. They dug into a hillside and built part of the home in this fashion, the used straw bales for the floors, walls and roof and used lime plaster. 
The choice for lime plaster is a rather interesting one, as lime plaster takes far less energy to manufacture than does cement. Most people are still unaware the concrete, while very durable, is also very energy intensive to produce. Most environmentalist consider concrete to be very destructive as a whole for the planet. The choice to use lime plaster was most certainly a good one in fitting with the Woodland Home theme.
The Woodland Home is packed with other features that would also make environmentalist jump with glee, such as using scrap wood for the floors, skylights in the roof to cut down on electricity bills, as well as solar panels. The Woodland Home also collects rainwater and has a composite toilet. In short, this is one very environmentally friendly little house.
The creators of the Woodland Home are very straightforward about how important it is to construct in this fashion whenever possible. One of the most important reasons that they chose to construct using “organic architecture” was to be as natural as possible, and avoid toxic building materials. In short, they wanted to build a home that had very little impact on both the environment and their own personal health.
More than likely the Woodland Home is using concepts and features that we are likely to see incorporated into many homes in the future. Clearly, currently building practices are not sustainable in the long run and homes like the Woodland Home are pointing the way as to what is possible. In this sense, they are true trailblazers. You can learn more about this unique tiny house from Simon at www.simondale.net/house.
If you haven’t heard about the Woodland Home, and you are a tiny home/sustainable home fan, you’ve been missing out. This home built in Wales is a very interesting concept indeed.
Built by volunteers for about $5500, this tiny home looks much like something out of The Lord of the Rings films. The core concept is to build a home using as few processed materials as possible. To this end, the builders utilized a variety of techniques. They dug into a hillside and built part of the home in this fashion, the used straw bales for the floors, walls and roof and used lime plaster.
The choice for lime plaster is a rather interesting one, as lime plaster takes far less energy to manufacture than does cement. Most people are still unaware the concrete, while very durable, is also very energy intensive to produce. Most environmentalist consider concrete to be very destructive as a whole for the planet. The choice to use lime plaster was most certainly a good one in fitting with the Woodland Home theme.
The Woodland Home is packed with other features that would also make environmentalist jump with glee, such as using scrap wood for the floors, skylights in the roof to cut down on electricity bills, as well as solar panels. The Woodland Home also collects rainwater and has a composite toilet. In short, this is one very environmentally friendly little house.
The creators of the Woodland Home are very straightforward about how important it is to construct in this fashion whenever possible. One of the most important reasons that they chose to construct using “organic architecture” was to be as natural as possible, and avoid toxic building materials. In short, they wanted to build a home that had very little impact on both the environment and their own personal health.
More than likely the Woodland Home is using concepts and features that we are likely to see incorporated into many homes in the future. Clearly, currently building practices are not sustainable in the long run and homes like the Woodland Home are pointing the way as to what is possible. In this sense, they are true trailblazers. You can learn more about this unique tiny house from Simon at www.simondale.net/house.
Yes, I’ve loved that little house for a long time. Sadly there’s always the planning permission issues with it and other houses like it. Having the use of the land, building cheaply and environmentally and making it look as beautiful as it does just isn’t enough sadly. The hoops that some people have had to go through to get permission to live in places like this are crazy, see the story attached to what’s become known as That Roundhouse in Wales, which you can find on the website for the house here http://www.thatroundhouse.info/
Just as with tiny mobile houses, permission doesn’t really count, in the uk even if you own the land, you can’t live on it in something like a caravan or mobile home for more than 28 days in a year unless you have planning permission and generally you just won’t get it. Sad but true. The one bright spot is that you can build and apply for permission in retrospect and, if you are living gently on the land, and not annoying neighbours, you may be lucky and receive permission to stay. Simon has the best description of this I’ve found anywhere on his site at http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm and is well worth a read to give you an idea of how things work in the UK.
Cheers,
Justin.
Justin, I’m not as familiar with the zoning challenges in the UK. Although, I have been following the story of the Roundhouse.
Is it possible to do the trick similar to what Jay Shafer once did where you could have a tiny house in the back yard of a regular house and then rent out the big house and live in the one out back? I know the UK has a much stronger tradition of backyard sheds than the U.S. but I don’t know what restrictions there might be in living in one.
No, you can’t live in a caravan (which is essentially what a tiny house is) for more than 28 days in a year, without planning permission. You can have a guest to stay temporarily if the caravan is in your own back garden. You may have someone live in a caravan in your own garden providing they take a minimum of 1 meal a day in the house with you, but you cannot have someone independently living in a caravan in your garden without planning permission.
Crazy but true.