Natural Building Techniques E-Book

Tom Woolley

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 296

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Natural materials are increasingly being valued for their use in a wide range of techniques and solutions, not just for building cabins in the countryside, but also for housing, schools and city structures. As the need to respond to climate change becomes a serious requirement for all building projects, so too does our understanding of how these bio-based and renewable materials can help to reduce carbon emissions. With convincing evidence that natural materials work as well as, if not better than, conventional materials, this helpful guide offers an outline of many of the materials, products and methods of construction that are available, equipping readers with confidence to create healthy, ecological homes. This comprehensive book will be of interest to self-builders, home owners, architects, housing developers and specifiers, as well as environmentalists, eco builders and campaigners who want to reduce the impact of construction on the planet.

Leseprobe

Earth wall in house in Fifeshire, Scotland (photo: Becky Little); back cover top: interior CLT finished walls, Adderstone Crescent (photo: Eurban); back cover bottom: cob handrail by Becky Little (photo: Becky Little)

First published in 2022 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

This e-book first published in 2022

© Tom Woolley 2022

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4048 7

Cover design: Maggie Mellett

DisclaimerEvery effort has been made by the authors and the publishers to check the accuracy of information contained in this book however readers are encouraged to use this information as a starting point only. It will be necessary to check for updated contact and product information as this will change over time. It is also important to obtain the best possible professional advice about design, construction and material specification when undertaking a project. The author cannot take responsibility for any building or design work decisions based on ideas found in this book.

DedicationIn memory of Heimir Salt,natural-born anarchist and self-builder

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Chapter One The Importance of Natural Building

Chapter Two Building with Earth

Chapter Three Timber

Chapter Four Lime and Masonry

Chapter Five Strawbale Building

Chapter Six Hemp and Hempcrete

Chapter Seven Manufactured Natural Materials

Chapter Eight Paints and Finishes

Chapter Nine Retrofit and Renovation

Chapter Ten Challenges for the Future

Index

FOREWORD

IAM ALWAYS AMAZED AT THE AMOUNT OF material and sheer hard work it takes to erect a building. Even a small house takes truckloads of the stuff, with fittings and materials coming from just about everywhere on the face of the planet. Sadly, the end result is architecture that is often badly built, barely fit for human habitation, and toxic to life. We are destroying our relationship with the natural world as we huddle behind triple-glazed windows in mechanically ventilated rooms, disconnected from experience of nearly everything outside. Human activities are so huge now that by the end of 2020 human-made materials outweighed Earth’s entire biomass. Around 1900 this figure ran at about 3 per cent. The twentieth century certainly was a very busy one!

Human activity has brought about a new geological era, the Anthropocene. Or as some would have it, the ‘Plasticene’, now that plastic and synthetic particles are found in every corner of the globe, where they will become trapped in the geological record for all time. No part of Planet Earth has escaped the influence of humans upon it. Everyone by now must be aware of the cluster of major and dire environmental issues facing us all, brought about by this impact.

The major action that drives all this frantic activity is the built environment, wrecking the natural environment in its wake. It is the natural environment that sustains us, nourishes us, gives us life and provides essential life support. Everything we use to build with is won from the earth, cut down, dug up, transported, processed, often made toxic, and usually with huge energy inputs and environmental damage.

Architecture (a term that includes the whole built environment) that does not sustain and enhance the natural environment is killing us and every other living organism. We are now in the midst of the sixth mass extinction period, brought about by human destruction.

We have been forewarned by scientists about the consequences of burning fossil fuels since the end of the nineteenth century. Rachel Carson’s pivotal Silent Spring in the 1950s warned us about persistent toxins in our environment. We are slow learners.

Given what we have collectively wrought, collectively we need to change our attitude to our built environment if things are ever to improve. What we build now, what we build with, how we build, where we build, the layout of cities, how we move about, and how we refurbish, have consequences that will last for centuries.

We know it is critical that we immediately reduce embodied energy by very large amounts and eliminate toxins from our buildings. Emissions released now are the ones that need urgent attention if we are to decarbonize rapidly enough to avoid even worse climate-related disasters than those already occurring all around the world.

Therefore, the most ecological building is the one you don’t build. If you can’t do it well, do nothing. Next it is the one you don’t demolish. We simply can’t afford to trash the embodied energy already expended. And then, if we must build, it’s the one that treads carefully, using local minimally processed resources, erecting buildings that meet real need and not pandering to greed.

Death by a thousand cuts destroys and poisons the natural environment. We need to kill the notion that any action we take can be regarded as no more than minor, with its underlying assumption that the environment can sustain an ongoing and ever-increasing assault on its health by an ever-increasing expansion of the built environment, even if it’s only one small incursion at a time. The critical question above all other considerations has to become whether any proposal or action enhances or degrades the natural environment. It’s a simple test.

This earth-centric approach is critical as the foundation of any built environment that will protect and restore the wider encompassing environment.

There is urgency in addressing the issues facing us. To do this we have to work with what we know now. The materials we choose to work with matter. One of the progressive and forward-looking keys to creating a better built environment uses what are collectively referred to as natural materials. These are locally found, won and modified with minimal processing, are non-toxic in nature, and often have been worked with and used over thousands of years.

Humans have built since antiquity with natural timbers and have used natural fibres in many ways. Earth-building techniques, often with the addition of natural fibres such as straw, have a history running back at least 10,000 years, so are arguably good for a few more years yet. Burning lime for mortar and whitewash tracks back at least 2,000 years. Mixing lime with hemp has nearly as long a history. More recently we have the addition of strawbale building to add to our mix of materials and techniques. They all have low embodied energy or even sequester carbon, and they do not rely on widespread use of poisons.

We are very fortunate to have people amongst us who know how to build really well using a wide range of natural materials, building on that very long tradition of their local and international use. In more recent times, these techniques have been subjected to a lot of research to demonstrate their strength and durability, and readily pass modern building performance criteria. Not only can they create well-performing buildings, but they use techniques often readily adopted by owner-builders as well as professional builders. They create buildings that are readily appreciated for their beauty but that also have an intangible, almost visceral, appeal.

This new book by Tom Woolley is a wide-ranging overview of the state of knowledge about many such building materials and techniques, drawn from his passion, experience and long career advocating for their use.

I am based on the other side of the globe but have no hesitation in hoping for the wide distribution and uptake of the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that my colleague has worked so hard to present in this book. It is mainly focused on the UK, but it has much wider application as well. As to the planet and all who live on it – we all depend on it.

Graeme North, MNZM FNZIAFounding Chair of the Earth Building Association of New ZealandChair of the Standards New Zealand Technical Committee for NZ Earth Building StandardsMember of the New Zealand Order of MeritAugust 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE HAVE CONTRIBUTED to the production of this book by enthusiastically sending details of projects and photos and by discussing ideas with me; some of these knew me but others were new lockdown friends whom I am yet to meet. It wasn’t possible to list them all here but I am grateful to them all. All other images are by the author unless specified otherwise. I need to thank The Crowood Press and Graeme in New Zealand for their critical support. At home I need to thank Rachel, Hannah, Jack and Lisa for putting up with me, and Sophie, Cathy, Olly and Chantelle for being there.

A special acknowledgement goes to Heimir Salt, whom I first met when teaching at the Architectural Association in London. He was central to the development of the innovative alternative approach to architecture that grew out of five years’ intense work with community and housing groups influenced by Colin Ward and Walter Segal. He also took a leading role in the research and publication of an important report on self-build in Britain, and later set up a useful website, ‘Self-Build Central’, which featured many case studies and information which must have helped hundreds of natural and self-builders throughout the UK. Heimir was one of the first people I knew who lived a non-consumerist lifestyle, always able to live happily on very little and able to find whatever was needed to do low-impact building. As a modest and unassuming person his life will not be well recorded elsewhere, which is why it was important to mention him in this book, which probably wouldn’t have happened without his influence.

Chapter One

THE IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL BUILDING

Why is Natural Building Important?

In a rapidly changing world, many of the things that we now take for granted may no longer be possible. Finding affordable building materials is becoming a problem. The UK has a major housing shortage, but development of low-cost affordable homes is still very limited and even renting a house seems out of sight for many young people. Shortage of land and sites remains a problem and cost of construction materials is escalating. Despite a great deal of talk about zero-carbon targets, little is changing in terms of how conventional buildings are built and energy costs are increasing in heating homes which are poorly insulated, including many new homes that are meant to be more energy-efficient.

Building and renovating with natural materials provides a real opportunity for people who want to live in a healthy ecological home, while making a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. This book gives an outline of many of the materials, products and methods of construction that are available. For some, building a cob oven or a strawbale cabin in the back garden is a hobby activity and for others it involves searching for a new ecological lifestyle, but natural building goes further than this; it creates a whole new approach to construction that has a lower impact than conventional mainstream development. For many, using low-impact materials may become the only way to create an affordable solution.

Natural materials are widely available from a wide range of sources, including what are known as bio-based materials such as straw and hemp, which can be grown on farms in the UK and Ireland. Earth and clay can be dug up from the building site if you are lucky. Wood-based products are largely imported from other parts of the world but could be made closer to home. Other key materials like lime are largely imported but much more could be done to use sources in the UK and Ireland.

Hempcrete Cottage, Co. Down. (Photo: Rachel Bevan)

Unfortunately, there remains an anxiety that natural materials are not robust enough to withstand the weather and that they will rot and decay. Architects prefer to import endangered species such as cedar or use wood treated with chemicals rather than local timber. We have become so dependent on cement and concrete and a wide range of plastics that are preferred when buildings are designed or renovated. Cement, concrete and plastic materials and gas-guzzling buildings (heating and air conditioning) are responsible for 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions, and yet little thought is given to changing to natural low-impact alternatives. Specifiers and quantity surveyors will artificially inflate prices for natural materials because they say that builders are unfamiliar with them, or they are difficult to source. This book will try to challenge these misconceptions.

Research for this book uncovered many examples of people who had been talked out of using natural materials by their architects or builders. Others used some natural materials but then added flammable plastic foam insulations as they were told that insulation standards would not be met. One aim of this book is to give you confidence that when you hope to build or renovate a home that natural materials are the best option and can be used successfully. There are many other obstacles and problems to be overcome, including shocking opposition from green campaigners, but in order to avoid a depressing start these issues are left to the final chapter, which you can ignore unless you want to know more about how to deal with these problems! Despite this, there are many, many people who have forged ahead building a huge range of natural buildings with great success, a sample of which are illustrated here.

Plastic-Free Building

Increasingly, our buildings are made of plastic. This may not be at all obvious when looking at a building apparently made of brick, concrete, timber and glass, but the use of plastic and synthetic materials has increased dramatically in the past twenty to thirty years and this is discussed in more detail in the final chapter. It is feasible to avoid and limit the use of plastics and synthetics by using natural materials and this has to be attractive to those of us who work hard to recycle household waste and avoid the use of single-use plastics. Campaigners like David Attenborough have done a wonderful job to make us aware of the terrible problems of plastic pollution, but this is seen as an issue of consumer waste, whereas plastic waste from buildings is one of the biggest sources of pollution. More details about conventional plastic and concrete housing are discussed in the final chapter, but Accord Housing Association, in the English Midlands, is building an innovative housing development in Redditch that is claimed to be plastic-free. It’s not 100 per cent plastic-free but they have gone a long way towards this target and also used natural materials such as wood fibre boards. (1)

Plastic-free housing, Redditch, by Accord Housing Association, currently under construction. (Photo: Accord)

What are the Advantages of Natural Materials?

Natural materials, if used correctly, can make it possible to significantly limit the use of plastics, but it is important to go through with this rather than making compromises. Houses built with hempcrete or straw bales and even earth have been wrapped in plastic airtightness membranes with plastic foam insulation added because an energy ‘expert’ has said that it is necessary to comply with building regulations, but it’s not necessary to be tricked into this! Natural materials can create buildings which are ‘breathable’, which is far better for your health and the health of the building. Wrapping buildings in plastic to make them more airtight was introduced to make buildings more energy-efficient but can lead to serious problems with damp, mould and health.

Breathability, or to use the correct term ‘vapour permeability’, allows buildings to cope with moisture and many natural materials are also hygroscopic, so they can help to regulate humidity and dampness. Many synthetic and conventional materials used today have the opposite effect, leading to ‘sick’ buildings, but natural materials provide the antidote to this.

Despite misinformation, many natural materials are fire-resistant without the use of toxic flame retardants. The average conventional house uses a huge chemical dose of hazardous chemical flame retardants, which are added to insulations, finishes, furniture and fittings. These chemicals are endocrine-disrupting chemicals which, even in small concentrations, can be absorbed through the endocrine system in the body and passed through the placenta to unborn babies as well as reducing testosterone in men. We inhabit a world of chemical soup in food, traffic pollution and, worst of all, in our buildings, producing a whole host of health problems such as developmental and behavioural issues in children and a significant increase in cancer levels. Some members of the medical and scientific community in the UK have their heads in the sand about environmental causes of cancer and other modern health problems, preferring to blame inherited conditions, lifestyle and obesity while ignoring the problem of hazardous emissions from buildings. Changing to natural materials is an escape from chemical pollution and giving a better start in life to your children. These issues are examined in much greater depth in another book (2) and a further volume should be out later in 2022.

An Architectural Theory of Natural Materials?

An excellent book entitled Vegetarian Architecture by Andrea Bocco Guaneri sets out the architectural and philosophical principles of natural building. This beautifully illustrated book includes many case studies of modern architecture that have drawn inspiration from the use of natural materials and vernacular traditions, and is worth a read to inspire you and maybe convert your sceptical architect. (3)

Many people have moved towards a more vegetarian diet for both health and environmental reasons. Building with conventional materials might now be compared to living on a diet of steaks, burgers and chicken nuggets, so the vegetarian metaphor is relevant. Guaneri quotes Lewis Mumford, who coined the term ‘biotechnic’ as an ecologically compatible approach to technology. He argues that as we become increasingly dependent on technology there is an alternative approach of ‘doing simple things with simple means’. Mumford compared machine technology to ‘organic technology’, the latter based on building by ‘craftsmen of necessity’, meeting everyday needs with limited local resources. Guaneri goes on to quote Ernst Schumacher who saw the technology of mass production as inherently violent, ecologically damaging, and self-defeating in terms of non-renewable resources. Building according to the laws of ecology is gentle in its use of scarce resources, designed to serve the human person.

Natural building is about thrift and using materials and technologies that are kind to humans and the planet by valuing and making responsible use of scarce and renewable resources. Making these choices may be easier after reading this book

Beware Greenwash

However, just as multinational agri-businesses have jumped onto veganism as yet another consumerist route to profits, it is important to beware greenwash. The construction materials industry and many architects talk of green and eco buildings that continue to use mass-produced, synthetic, CO2-emitting toxic materials. There are even ‘vegan’ and ‘feng shui’ paints that must be seen for what they are – cunning marketing. This book explores the world of manufactured natural materials and where they can be found. Many of us will have to make pragmatic choices and try to move towards natural materials, because digging up some clay and cutting down nearby trees is not always feasible. This book does not advocate competition between which is the greenest or most natural solution and whether strawbale is better than cob or hempcrete but it does encourage making principled practical and pragmatic choices. It also does not seek to condemn those who use natural materials combined with synthetic petrochemical products as at least they are moving in the right direction, but choosing earth, strawbale or hempcrete involves a rational evaluation of all the possibilities.

Hempcrete house in the Isle of Man. (Photo: Nigel Kermode)

Some people like to build what inevitably get called ‘hobbit houses’, using a particular style of construction with rounded walls and reciprocal green roofs, maybe partially underground, and some of these may have the best and least impact of any of the projects featured in this book. However, the hobbit houses at Hobbiton in New Zealand, used in the Hobbit movies, were built out of polystyrene and plywood, later replaced by concrete and bricks, with a fake glass fibre tree, which seems a sad form of inspiration for natural builders. (4) Some eco enthusiasts use the term ‘hobbit house’ as synonymous with natural building, but natural low-impact houses can look exactly the same as conventional-build buildings and still be saving carbon and providing a healthier environment.

Why Use Natural Materials?

The aim of this book is to show how buildings can be constructed from natural materials, whether they are a plain bungalow or university offices, because unless we can change mainstream development to low-impact solutions, we cannot hope to achieve a zero-carbon society. Sadly, this is not yet understood by the hundreds of organizations calling for decarbonization, including many green campaigners who follow fake trails to decarbonization (which are discussed in the final chapter) as they fail to embrace the principles of natural building. Fortunately, there are many more people using natural materials than there were in 2006 and natural building can no longer be regarded as a marginal approach to construction. Natural materials can be used to create whatever style of house you want, from an approach that expresses the vernacular and natural features of materials to a minimal modernist approach.

The other key aspect of this book is the provision of convincing evidence that natural materials actually work as well as if not better than conventional ones. To use natural materials can mean having a better-quality environment that is more energy-efficient and robust. Detractors push the idea that natural buildings are second best but modern lightweight synthetic plastic buildings lack thermal mass and the ability to regulate humidity and air quality. Cheap conversions of office buildings into flats, for instance, which is becoming commonplace to meet housing needs, puts occupants at even greater risk from poor conditions, particularly overheating in heatwaves, as builders use lightweight synthetic products if and when they bother to add insulation. (5)

Natural materials like hempcrete, straw, wood fibre and earth behave in a completely different way from conventional materials, allowing buildings to store energy in the fabric. These materials are also robust and long-lasting and able to deal with weather and climate. Timber preserved with lime, wattle and daub, and cob walls have survived for centuries and yet architects prefer to specify untried plastic materials that may last little more than twenty years. Embracing natural materials is about re-establishing contact with a vernacular tradition, but doing so in modern ways.

The Changing Context for Building

As this book was nearing completion, the media was full of reports about increasing fuel and electricity costs that have only been held back by government price caps. Those on limited incomes will find it harder to heat their homes and keep the lights on in the future as prices rise. Pressure to apply inappropriate approaches to decarbonization is leading to calls for gas boilers and woodburning stoves to be banned and regulations are likely to insist on electrical heating only in the future. This will create greater dependence on the giant electricity companies and, even though increasing amounts of electricity are coming from renewables, this is mostly in the hands of multinationals. It will be hard to hide from the zero-carbon ‘police’ when they spot smoke coming out of your chimney and we will be forced to adopt technologies like air-source heat pumps or pumping hydrogen down old gas pipes. This might sound like a luddite perspective but the energy campaigners spend little of their time on issues like embodied energy, better insulation and healthy buildings, hoping instead for some kind of ‘techno-salvation’.

Natural building gives you an opportunity to keep yourself warm in a healthy way and a really well-designed vapour-permeable house with good thermal mass will make it possible to keep the heating bills down. This low-technology approach will last much longer than new gadgets.

The other issue which is currently attracting a massive amount of panic reporting is the cost and shortages of materials. This means that timber, imported timber and timber products are becoming much more expensive and even in short supply. A lime materials supplier in England has said that it is hard to get deliveries of raw materials as many trucks in the England have been diverted to supply concrete and aggregates to the HS2 high-speed railway line construction and there is also a shortage of HGV drivers. What could be better reasons for using locally sourced natural materials where possible and this will be even more essential in the future. Natural builders can potentially look after themselves, while also having much less impact on the planet.

The latest revelations about climate change accompanied by catastrophic flooding, heatwaves, forest fires and storms should be taken seriously but it’s possible that many people have become numb to these issues. The Sixth IPCC Report presents data which cannot be challenged but does not tell us what we should do about it. (6) Seventy per cent of damaging emissions are caused by 100 of the main multinational companies but they continue with business as usual, blaming governments and ordinary people. They are even able to make use of procedures called ‘corporate courts’ which are built into international trade deals and are being used by corporations to block progressive environmental policies. (7)

These trade deals can affect the exploitation of resources and the transportation of toxic oil-based materials around the world. The manufacture of dangerous polluting materials such as isocyanates have effectively been stopped in Europe, but instead of changing to safe bio-based materials, production of plastic foam insulations has been moved to China and other Asian countries, leading to a spike in CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) emissions even though they were banned in the Montreal Protocol in 1992. Such materials are then shipped around the world to feed production of synthetic insulations in the UK and Ireland. (8)

We might feel guilty about our own personal behaviour but we need to challenge the big organizations that are really doing the damage. The multinational-owned building materials and construction industry wants us to continue to use toxic plastic petrochemical products and quarry for more and more non-renewable materials to make cement, concrete and mineral products. By building and renovating with natural materials it is possible to take a real stand against climate damage and show others the way forward. Natural buildings have to be a beacon of hope for a different way of respecting the planet and using resources responsibly. We need to lead by positive example rather than becoming depressed at all the stories of doom and gloom. You will search in vain in the IPCC and other reports on climate change for any guidance or practical proposals of what can be done, apart from expensive and possibly unrealistic high embodied-energy schemes such as storing CO2 underground or converting gas pipes in the street to distribute hydrogen. Spreading woe about climate catastrophe is pointless if real alternatives are not on offer.

Self-Build is Good for the Soul

Using natural materials can have enormous psychological benefits. A house built and finished with wood and clay and natural paints not only has lower emissions but has a positive effect on mental health. Evidence for this is inevitably anecdotal, but work is beginning to promote the importance of the environment in terms of well-being. The UK Town and Country Planning Association has recognized this and introduced a private member’s bill into the Westminster parliament promoting the concept of healthy housing. This holistic approach includes requirements for better external space as well as good indoor air quality. There are a handful of small private developers who are attempting to respond to this, but there seems to be little evidence of mainstream developers and social housing bodies recognizing the need and turning to greater use of natural materials. (9)

Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) infographic about the Healthy Homes Bill. (Drawing: TCPA)

It is vitally important that natural building materials are affordable and not seen only as an expensive indulgence for wealthy people. Some housing developments marketed as healthy are trying to cash in on a demand from people who assume that such housing will be more expensive. There are one or two builders’ merchants, selling imported materials, that tend to give the impression that they are catering for a luxury market. Some of the projects illustrated in this book may appear to fall into this category but, in most cases, reflect the efforts of people who have chosen natural solutions due to a restricted budget. Healthy materials could play a massive role in improving conditions for low-income people living with fuel poverty and health problems from cold and damp housing.

There are encouraging signs that new building companies and organizations providing training and advice are emerging. New businesses are being established to process hemp and provide bio-based insulation materials and possibly using local timber resources rather than relying on imports from Europe. Consumer demand can make a difference by persuading public bodies and private industry that renewable materials are the way forward and, if more widely available, can be used in low-cost building and renovation projects.

The Pent-Up Demand for Alternative Ways of Living

There has been a significant growth throughout the UK and Ireland of the number of individuals and groups wanting to live in a different way from conventional housing. Ben Fogle’s TV programme New Lives in the Wild has provided examples of people who have given up city jobs and lifestyles to live off-grid and in a more ecological way. (10) Many of the people featured by Fogle have built houses that use natural and recycled materials and there are many, many more than have featured in TV programmes.

There has also been a huge growth in the development of so-called glamping accommodation as demand for staycation holidays has grown. There are many commercial glamping-style holiday cabins, some of which are far from ecological or natural, using prefabricated building systems full of plastic foam insulation and recycled steel containers, but other projects use natural materials. There are cabins, pods, yurts and even tree houses to be found and it is estimated that the global glamping market is worth nearly £1.5 billion. (11) Glamping has been cynically described as for people who want to go camping but who still want an en suite toilet and don’t want the hassle of putting up a tent! Do not assume that because the word ‘glamping’ is used that this means that buildings are healthy and environmentally friendly, but staying in a remote hut in the woods is inspiring many people to think that this could be a way to live in the future.

Scotland has led the way for people to experience life in the wilderness with the Thousand Huts programme, (12) established by the Reforesting Scotland campaign (13) and with a website full of useful information including how to build using low-impact and low-carbon methods. In Wales the One Planet Living planning policy (14) has established the possibility for planning permission to be given to people who want to live off-grid, sustainable, self-sufficient lives in the countryside. One Planet Living is highly regarded as a new policy although it is sometimes a struggle for those trying to establish this to get planning permission and meet the very stringent criteria.

A growing number of people are looking to alternative settlements, working co-operatively to establish eco villages or small eco developments. These can include self-build groups, co-housing groups and community land trusts, as well as eco villages. There are a range of organizations supporting or leading such initiatives, including the Ecological Land Co-operative, (15) Co-Housing UK (16) and Community Land Trust UK (17).

Finding land and finance are huge obstacles for people involved in these projects and even when they find a site, getting planning permission can be a struggle, with opposition from local people, parish councils and so on. The tremendous work of the Ecological Land Co-operative is worth studying, with details of their sites at Orchard Park (Cornwall), Sparkford (Somerset), Furzehill (Gower), Arlington (East Sussex) and Greenham Reach (Devon). It is worth looking at the information on the Furzehill scheme in the Gower in South Wales. (18) Click on the link to the planning portal and download the massive range of documents that have been expertly put together to support the proposal, including many supporting letters and a few objections!

Many of these projects are not just about building eco houses but are also about growing vegetables and managing and rewilding land in a sustainable way. Sadly, few of the co-housing and community land trust projects have embraced natural building principles to date. To some extent this is understandable, as the effort required to establish these projects is so enormous that the groups are easily talked out of innovative construction approaches at the stage where they are exhausted. Many end up with mainstream architects, but even those determined to be green and energy-efficient have been persuaded to use synthetic petrochemical and concrete building solutions. There are exceptions, such as LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community) in Leeds (seeChapter 5 on strawbale construction) and other projects which are long-established, such as Lammas in West Wales or Cloughjordan eco village in County Tipperary in Ireland. (19) These large projects contain many exemplary natural buildings using a wide range of techniques, including cob, straw, hempcrete and recycled materials, although establishing and maintaining big projects like this is not easy and can run into problems. (20) Eco villages can attract hordes of social science students, each keen to write a thesis about new ways of living. Lammas, however, have embraced this, and provide an excellent web resource with access to dozens of theses and their own annual monitoring reports. (21) (22) Eco villages are part of a global movement (23) (24) and many new projects can be found throughout the UK and Ireland.

Part of Cloughjordan eco village, with a view of a hostel building near the entrance.

Cob roundhouse at Cloughjordan.

Hempcrete house at Cloughjordan.

One of many natural houses at Lammas, inevitably described by the press as a ‘hobbit house’.

Lammas Community Hub building.

Use of local timber to create a platform bed in a house at Lammas.

Another vital source of information about a radical approach to the use of land, containing a great resource of stories and news about alternative projects, is The Land magazine – well worth subscribing to and excellent value for money. (25)

An Irish organization, IRLT (Irish Regenerative Land Trust), also sets out the basis for a new approach to the land, not just in Ireland but throughout Europe. (26) This began as part of a small project with some alternative land and housing groups in Ireland, funded by the Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities project (SHICC). (27) Following discussion with one of the land regeneration groups, a draft set of principles for sustainable housing development was prepared:

•Houses should be low-impact in terms of embodied energy and environmental impact, with responsible resource consumption based on a holistic approach.

•Re-use of existing buildings preferred to newbuild, with regeneration and integration into local settlement patterns. (The principles below can largely apply to renovation and retrofit as well as newbuild.)

•Holistic design in terms of relationship with surrounding area and the potential for growing food, including sheltered outside area for clothes drying and good internal connection with outdoors and views of outside.

•