Visually and structurally the house is defined by two thermally massive, super insulated bookend walls, which support a pre stressed concrete plank first floor. This arrangement allows the internal spaces to run the full width of the building as well as providing a large amount of useful thermal mass. A discrete buttress and series of cross walls provide lateral stability, allowing the two ends to be lighter weight infill panels; the front of timber framing with oak cladding, and the rear to be almost entirely glazed, within a framing of Douglas Fir. This southerly glazed end forms a sunspace, contributing passive solar heating to the house.
Internally, natural materials have been used throughout. The side walls, which have 300mm of cavity insulation are designed to be breathable through the use of lime render externally and clay paint on lime plaster internally. The floors are covered with oak and Welsh slate on the ground floor, and cork to the bedroooms. Reclaimed Welsh slate forms the hearth, with other reclaimed items being the planks to the sunspace balcony and hallway bridge. In the dining area a pew salvaged from a redundant chapel forms the bench seating. The entrance slab and cills are in local red sandstone, and the windows made locally from oak.
The two double glazed screens to the sunspace effectively provide quadruple glazing to the interior. The largest window is formed by three frameless panels, providing an ever changing triptych of the mountain and sky, punctuated by paragliders on sunny days and bats on a Summer evening.
A second phase will add a parterre herb garden between kitchen and workshop. Above the workshop will be a green roof growing sedum. A new orchard has already been planted in the adjacent field, together with vegetable beds. Biomass willow for coppice rotation and native hedging provide the log burner with a very local renewable fuel supply.
The ground floor is open plan, with the cross walls separating an office / studio from the living / dining and kitchen area. Upstairs are four bedrooms and two bath / shower rooms. The staircase is located in a triple height hallway, flooded with daylight from two full height slot windows. Curved walls internally help maximise the flow of natural light, and echo the form of the rear garden retaining wall and the curved straw bale wall to the workshop.
