One Day, All Houses Will Be Built This Way

23.09.2009 The Guardian

Sustainably built, energy-efficient, inexpensive and double-quick to construct: if this is the future of social housing, it looks bright.

Social housing tenants could soon be living in state-of-the-art green homes built from natural materials such as clay, hemp and sheep's wool, which are being pioneered as part of Prince Charles' campaign to create beautiful sustainable property.

Building work on The Natural House started in April and is due to be completed this month. With a construction price tag of around £100,000 and fuel bills predicted to be half that of a traditional bricks-and-mortar home, the property is being promoted by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, which is behind the scheme, as a realistic option for social housing. Earlier this year, Prince Charles said: "The Natural House is an attempt to introduce a new model for green building that is site-built, low-carbon and easily adapted for volume building."

Once completed, the house is expected to achieve a four-star rating under the government's Code for Sustainable Homes, the code that ranks properties according to a list of green credentials including energy efficiency, renewable materials and water consumption.

The house takes 12 weeks to build instead of the usual six months for a traditional home, and is one of nine properties being constructed and tested at the Innovation Park in Hertfordshire. Run by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), which is committed to sustainability and innovation in the built environment, the site showcases new developments in green home construction and design.

...

Read full article