Home > A closer look at Eco Architecture

‘Living Ethically’ was invited last month to visit the home and offices of award winning architect, Jerry Harrall. Recognised as the ‘British Green Champion’ for 2005/06, in the Spring of this year he became the first recipient of the National Green Hero Award for his work in environmental best practice and setting pathfinder environmental standards. Amongst other awards along the way in previous years, you get the idea Jerry knows what he’s talking about.

Based at Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire, the first thing you notice when drawing into the shingle car park, is a huge man-made mound, covered in netting and young ivy.
This is the north facing side of Jerry’s house (see photo 1).

We enter the adjacent offices of Jerry’s company, Sustainable Ecological Architecture Limited (SEArch), via a ramp, where inside up to 6 employees are poised creatively over architectural plans on computer screens.
The company’s portfolio of work is nowadays entirely green, such is the growing interest.

Thinking nothing of it at the time, later it transpires the ramp is necessary, because the building has no traditional foundations. Instead, the office and house are built upon raised hard-core and concrete bases.

Jerry explains it’s rather in the style of a cathedral, built on top of the land, where the load of the building is spread and supported across the hardcore mixture, rather than digging into the earth itself. First impressive fact I think to myself.

Standing in the cosy office, Jerry lets fire with his second impressive fact, the house and offices have only required traditional supplementary heating for three days in the last two and half years. Having got our attention, he then goes on to describe how this is achieved.

It seems there are two main aims in constructing an eco house, and in this case specifically an earth sheltered building.

Firstly, the building is constructed to be super efficient, in terms of its insulation and design to attract the maximum advantage from its environment – you’re asking the sun to heat it after all. It follows the aspect of the building must be south facing to achieve this. Also, its shape should be long in length, thin in depth, and angled towards the sun in order to grab and cup as much heat and light as is possible. Try to imgaine it almost like a sausage in appearance with a heavy kink in it towards one end. The north, west and east walls are covered by an earth mound, to cosy the building up in its very own ‘overcoat.’ Then finally in its grounds, vegetation is planted to create a micro-climate, further reducing the potential heat loss from the building (see photo 2).

Secondly, the building itself and materials used must be as environmentally friendly as possible. Jerry explained, when he first built the Long Sutton Work/Life project seven years ago, some of the materials used weren’t made then in the UK and he had to import them from Germany.

It seems the house exploits the use of simple materials and build to minimise expense and also the size of its eco footprint – for instance no lintels, plastering, skirting, architraves, roofing materials and trusses, gutters or downpipes, or carpets were used.

Instead, the construction essentially relied upon exposed concrete and insulation materials. On top of a compacted hardcore base, a concrete floor and insulation was laid. Eventually the floor was highly polished, and the result gives it a surprisingly attractive almost marble effect. In fact, it doesn’t look like concrete at all.

Next, dense concrete external walls clad in insulation and internal block-work walls were built, upon which a concrete and insulated roof was perched. Whereupon, an earth mound was built around and on top of the structure except for its long south facing wall, which has lots of tall windows to maximise light and heat from the sun.

Jerry maintains it’s cheaper to build eco-houses than conventional houses and of course they have the added advantage of being much cheaper to run in terms of power consumption and without doubt are kinder to the environment. Without the need to heat the house, Jerry says his total power bill is just £7 per week and he’s looking at further ways of reducing it.

Creating a micro-climate for his house has involved planting over 12,000 individual hedgerows, shrubs and trees. Native species are used extensively, including cherry, hazel and berberris. From the south east corner of the plot (see photo 3) Jerry showed how he used phased planting to create a windshield, reinforcing the microclimate surrounding the building, which in turn reduces the rate of heat loss from it. From the exterior inwards, a tree canopy gives way to lines of hedging.

Given the prevailing wind is south-westerly; the building is shielded stoutly from this direction by external buildings like workshops, sheds and a summer house.

If this wasn’t inspirational enough, Jerry enthused how his next project and house is to be built on a disused petrol station. We had to cross the road to see it and sure enough it was an abandoned old petrol station, complete with dilapidated buildings, scruffy forecourt and its rusting canopy still in place (see photo 4).

Jerry said his plans for the acre site included building a new house for himself on the site of the station itself, then behind it, offices and a café would be built. The intention is to get rent out the offices to eco-businesses who could collaborate and ‘brain-storm’with each other in the café.

If building on a former petrol station would worry you (it would me) he reassured us by explaining how the site had been vented for a few years now to clear any residual gases away, and also surveys had revealed that the toxic products left behind were heading further downwards, rather than resurfacing and were presenting no danger to neighbouring buildings or underground water courses.

Also, because as usual, a hardcore base on top of the ground will be used to provide foundations, no excavations are necessary in the design and so an expensive environmental cleanup of the subsoil isn’t required. As Jerry pointed out, it’s probably best to leave the pollution where it is, underground, rather than dig it up and transport it to a specialist landfill.

From an exposed corner of the site, and in a freezing wind, Jerry said he was aiming to create zero-heated buildings. He advised this would again be achieved by planting vegetative barriers shields to create a micro-climate in the local environment and by positioning the buildings to take maximum advantage of the sun. The buildings would also be super insulated, using specialist materials including recycled glass and paper, and this time by employing cladding as a building technique.

The current buildings on the site are naturally to be demolished and any of the materials not used in the planned reconstruction, are to be recycled by making them available to the general public free of charge.

Later in his office, we looked at Jerry’s designs and tried to imagine the conversion of this site from a former petrol station to an eco haven and creative hub. This helped to leave a lasting impression that anything is possible and there is hope for our planet if minds and resources are freed to think and do the unconventional and seemingly the impossible. Especially when eco-designed housing makes economic sense as well, it’s a mystery why it shouldn’t be encouraged and embraced more.

Why is that?

For more information, contact Jerry Harrall at:-

Sustainable Ecological Architecture Limited
89 Gedney Road
Long Sutton
Spalding
Lincs PE12 9JU
UK

T: 01406 364646
F: 01406 364471
E: molearch@searcharchitects.co.uk

 

copyright © Ethical Earth Limited 1 April 2006

 

 

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