NEWS ARTICLE: Low-cost Homes: economical eco-options on the rise: Innovative building projects are finally making affordable green housing a reality
(Zoe Dare Hall,The Independent, 21 February 2007, www.independent.co.uk)
With the Government insisting that all new homes in Britain must be carbon-neutral by 2016, the pressure is on developers to come up with good design that doesn't cost the earth - financially or environmentally.
Only about 200 homes in the UK currently count as zero-carbon. Going green costs money and most private sector developers are reluctant to see beyond their profits. But eco-friendly innovation is coming from elsewhere - namely social housing.
Former fashion designer Wayne Hemingway, chair of Building For Life and head, with his wife Gerardine, of Hemingway Design, creates homes according to the mantra: "It's got to be affordable and make people happy."
To teach developers a thing or two about sustainable design, Hemingway points to Selwyn Street in Oldham, where wind turbines and solar panels cut residents' annual energy bills to £400 below the national average; or the Eco Homes "Excellent"-rated Angell Town in Brixton, London, where 600 newly built or refurbished units benefit from solar panels and rain water harvesting.
"Developers can be persuaded to become eco-friendly by looking at the kind of customer a more forward-thinking design attracts - more A and Bs," said Hemingway.
He and Gerardine are now working on The Bridge, a £400m regeneration project in the Thames Gateway which includes 1,500 new apartments and houses set around 80 acres of open space and a nature reserve.
"It is a true sustainable community," said Hemingway. "While The Bridge has sustainable urban drainage systems and high Eco Homes standards, the most sustainable elements are the fact that it will be a great place to live in, with public transport, forward-thinking schools, health care and on-site employment."
Providing such homes in deprived communities is the key to sustainable living, he said. "Then we can create an environmental and social infrastructure that is also attractive to economically active sectors of the population."
Living Villages' eco-friendly developments, say Hemingway, are also models of real, sustainable communities. Although the energy-saving houses at The Wintles in Bishops Castle, Shropshire, are scarcely low-cost, from £300,000 for a three-bedroom house, Living Villages is soon launching an affordable, zero-carbon scheme in Scotland.
Materials, including paint, are all non-toxic and locally sourced, heating works on the "thermal onion" principle of being placed only in living rooms and bathrooms, leaving the warmth to permeate to lesser-used bedrooms, and walls can be shifted to adapt to changing needs.
"The Wintles is an evolving project which has taught us much about how to keep within our eco ethos," said Carole Salmon from Living Villages. "The homes are high spec and reasonably expensive to build, but they cost very little in heating.
"It is becoming easier to build zero-carbon properties at low cost as the materials and technology is changing all the time," she adds. "More important than the specification of the property is making the layout living-friendly. Our homes are designed in a curve, which promotes far more interaction."
Terence Conran's architectural arm, Conran & Partners, has introduced eco-inspiration to housing association schemes such as Atalanta in Bevendean, Brighton, where shared ownership apartments cost from £50,000 (£125,000 full price).
With green roofs, locally sourced timber and super-insulation, key workers can live in designer homes that are not only cheap to buy but cheap to run.
"The private sector doesn't see value in sustainability yet," says Conran & Partners director Paul Zara. "But affordable housing, which is partly state-funded, looks at ways not only of increasing supply but also new, greener methods of building."
Zara points to Bedzed in Surrey - the country's largest carbon-neutral eco-community, created by the Peabody Trust - as the frontrunner in innovation.
Of its 82 sustainable homes, 48 are available to key workers, social housing or shared ownership and all run on energy from onsite renewable sources. Few resales have cropped up, but a recent two-bed apartment sold for around £200,000.
Houses are triple-glazed and south-facing to make the most of solar power. Building materials are sourced from within 35 miles of the site and there is a car-pooling system, with priority given to electric and LPG cars. The results, compared with the UK average, speak for themselves: 25 per cent less electricity used, water use cut by half, heating 88 per cent less and residents' car mileage down by 65 per cent.
Zara admits being eco-friendly and low-cost can be difficult to achieve. At another one of Conran's affordable housing developments in Brighton's St James Street Mews, where one-bedroom houses will cost from around £100,000, plans to use a German kit house system and build entire houses in four days, minimising the energy used in on-site construction, have been shelved due to the high cost. Instead, they will use more conventional timber frames.
"As more people build in an environmentally friendly way, costs will come down but at the moment windmills and solar panels are expensive and may not pay back their cost. For bigger sites, solar water heating and combined heat and power are working well right now," said Zara.
Targetting the eco-aware younger generation who are struggling to become first-time buyers, Park 25 is a new George Wimpey development for the Thames Valley Housing Association in Redhill, Surrey, where buyers can purchase a minimum 50 per cent share in a property, with English Partnerships making up the full price by way of a direct payment to the developer.
The properties, from £229,995 for a one-bed apartment at full cost, are heated by zero-carbon biomass boilers that provide the apartments with heating and hot water from a single boiler, saving around 500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year - and sparing owners the cost and responsibility of carrying out annual gas boiler checks.
First-time buyer Nico Barclay, 26, is happy on both the cost and eco-friendly counts. He has bought a 50 per cent share of a £165,000 apartment at Park 25, which he will move in to next year.
"When I first went to visit the development I was told about the biomass heating system, which greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions," said Mr Barclay. "I am lucky to have been accepted on the Newbuild Homebuy scheme at Park 25, and it's also very satisfying that my apartment is going to be built to high eco-friendly standards."
For more information please contact Paul Zara, Director, Conran & Partners: cp@conranandpartners.com
February 2006
