Hunshelf Park

Custom build PassivHaus Housing development

This 10 house project has been developed with Our Green Homes, to create affordable homes that are to the highest standard of energy performance. The house format is flexible internally, allowing 2-5 bed homes to cater for a wide range of family needs.

Location: Stocksbridge

Client: Bentsfield Ltd

Planning: May 2017

Site: N/A

Completion: N/A

Energy consumption: 14 kWh/m2.a

Budget: £1 million

Greenbottom farm

A new build family home in the green belt

A new build in a large open field is a challenging, and all the restrictions of the site led to the house form being surrounded by stone boundary walls and shed-like forms rising out.

A generous home, upon entry a feature stair greets you and your eyes are drawn to the view through the home and out to the field. The house is open plan, and makes the most of the southerly sun by lifting the roof without losing too much heat through the north-facing glazing facing out to the views.

entrance hallway

mezzanine

living area

south-facing courtyard

Location: Barnsley

Client: Private

Planning: June 2017

Site: N/A

Completion: N/A

Gross internal floor area: 240 m2

Energy consumption: 15 kWh/m2.a

Budget: N/A

Footgate Close

Low energy house retrofit and extension

This is a proposal to take a typical compact mid 20th century semi-detached home and extend it to create a generous family home with dramatically reduced energy use.

The side extension steps back and down with a pair of slate clad slices and these are complimented by a full width timber extension to the rear.

Proposed Enerphit energy performance.

Location: Sheffield

Client: Private

Planning: May 2017

Site: N/A

Completion: N/A

Energy consumption: 25 kWh/m2.a

Budget: £150,000

thorncroft

New build house in the green belt

The new house replaces a large barn / shed structure that sits at the top of a steeply sloping site. The proposal takes the simple, single storey barn form and adapts it to the requirements of the brief and the form of the slender plateau on which it sits. The design incorporates a comfortable living/dining/kitchen area with a separate snug and three bedrooms. The long, slim plan takes full advantage of the great views to the south and ensures good winter solar gain, whilst the deep overhanging roof shelters the glazing from summer overheating and shelters the access route to the front door.

The house will be glad in dark timber with a sinusoidal steel roof. The interiors will be kept stripped back with polished screed floors, timber linings and exposed timber trusses.

As with all our projects, the Passivhaus design methodology is being adhered to and we will aim to achieve as close to Passivhaus as possible with the build, although the form factor will make this more challenging than usual.

development model

elevation

interior view

floor plan

Location: Lower Hague

Client: Private

Planning: Summer 2017

Site: N/A

Completion: N/A

Energy consumption: 15 kWh/m2.a

Budget: £225,000

the paddock

New build house in the green belt

This project is at a very early stage working with the client to develop a scheme for pre-application discussions with the planning authority. The main living spaces are conceived as a timber box that emerges from the ground and extends to cantilever over the garage plinth below.

The project is aiming to be off-grid in terms of energy and the starting point for this is the best possible building fabric, so we will be aiming for full passivhaus as the basis for a very sustainable building.

concept diagram

massing model

Location: Devon

Client: Private

Planning: Late 2017

Site: N/A

Completion: N/A

Energy consumption: 15 kWh/m2.a

Budget: N/A

stringer barn conversion

Green belt barn conversion

This residential barn conversion is in a green belt overlooking rolling hills in the distance. The expansive views are framed by large stone wall ‘fins’, which separate the spaces and on the exterior provide a robust plinth between which timber shutters slide to modify the internal environment and to provide additional security.

The interior spaces include a double height kitchen flowing into a living space with a hearth included in one of the stone wall fins. The locally sourced stone will keep to the character of the area, but the timber, sliding shutters and glass infill gives it a contemporary feel.

The retrofit is to Enerphit energy standard.

Location: Emley, West Yorkshire

Client: Private

Planning: 2016

Site: 2018

Completion: N/A

Energy consumption: 25 kWh/m2.a

Budget: £400,000

The Hen House

Jo and Gail asked us to design them a warm, light filled, new-build home to downsize to in the steeply sloping garden of their existing house.

We carved a two storey dwelling into their difficult plot whilst maximising the amazing views to the West, avoiding numerous mature trees or overlooking their existing property.

Their new home is accessed on the upper level. Here we have created a spacious, light filled kitchen, living and dining space with fantastic views. This is clad in beautiful timber shingles which will soften with age and blend the house into its wooded surroundings.

The lower floor houses the bedrooms and support spaces in a solid, dark masonry plinth. The bedrooms feel snug and softly lit which contrasts well with the bright, spacious upper floor.

There had been four failed attempts to gain planning for the site previously. Our sensitively designed proposal was awarded planning on our first attempt.

We designed the house to be extremely warm and comfortable to live in whilst using very little energy compared to a typical new-build house.

We guided Jo and Gail throughout the process, helping them to choose the best contractor for the job and working with them to deliver a fantastic home to a high standard.

“It’s just over 8 weeks since we moved into our new home, and we still can’t believe that we get to live here. It feels like we’ve moved to a new country rather than to the bottom of the garden!”.

Jo & Gail, Self-builders, Sheffield

Photo credit: Dug Wilders Photography

Location: Bradway, Sheffield

Client: Private

Contractor: Simplicity Construction

Planning: 2015

Site: May 2017

Completion: March 2018

Energy consumption: 36 kWh/m2.a

Construction Cost: £1975/m2

Awards: IStructE Yorkshire Region Awards 2018 – Best Small Project; Sheffield Design Awards 2018 – Shortlisted;

self build on a shoestring

shoestring

Low cost self-build Passivhaus home competition entry

This was our entry for the National Self Build Associations’s self build on a shoestring competition; an innovative design for a three bedroom home can be self-built to the strict Passivhaus standard for under £45,000.

The house’s width makes the most of views to the garden and available sunlight, whilst carefully controlled openings create variety within a relatively compact form. The ground floor features a generous open-plan living/kitchen diner with large doors opening out onto a terrace.

The simple approach taken to construction means the house could be easily built with basic joinery skills either on or off-site. It also makes it easy to adapt to the individual self-builder’s needs or the regional context it sits within. The orientation could even be changed to fit a narrower plot or the local vernacular.

The design has been modelled to meet the most stringent of energy standards. However, renewable technology could be easily retrofitted or additional insulation added if required. It’s also important to understand that a passivhaus solution is a project and site specific one and any changes may change the calculated energy performance.

Our submission was selected as one of the final shortlist of 7 proposals. In the presentation at Grand Designs Live on the 5th October it was discussed along with the other schemes in a live presentation by Kevin McCloud, Charlie Luxton and Ted Stevens. It was described as “probably the most attractive entry” and as the most thoroughly researched and costed. Encouragingly it was one of 2 shortlisted schemes that achieved the Passivhaus standard. Unfortunately, it didn’t win. The top sixteen including the seven strong shortlist have been uploaded to the NaSBA website.

On the 29th October an informal event was held at Ash Sakula’s offices in London opening the short-listed schemes for further discussion. I couldn’t make it but Andy Thomas kindly presented my scheme. A video of the presentations has been posted on vimeo.

Document Downloads:

The Burrows

Earth-sheltered NPPF55 Passivhaus home in the green belt

The burrows is a new-build earth sheltered house. It’s not often you get the opportunity to build a house from scratch for a client so committed to good design and to class leading sustainability. Despite being a new, isolated dwelling in the green belt, paul testa architecture achieved planning approval for the proposal at first attempt in September 2012, making this the first Passivhaus to achieve planning in South Yorkshire. It was also one of the earliest NPPF paragraph 55 planning approvals in the country.

The design is very simple, with a linear progression along the linear, hilltop site. All of the habitable rooms have good southerly orientation to make the most of winter passive solar gain, but the windows and eaves are designed so as it minimise summer overheating. This combined with thermal mass, super-insulated building envelope, triple glazed windows and the thick grassed roof will make for an incredibly comfortable and healthy house in which to live.

A simple pallet of local stone, timber windows and infill panels, and zinc clad entrance and eaves will give the building a simple, elegant and understated aesthetic that will sit well in it’s landscape.