Footballer Gary Neville has applied to build a flower-shaped eco-friendly house in Greater Manchester.
The Manchester United star wants to build the 8,000 sq ft (743 sq m) four-bedroom single-storey home into a hillside in Bradshaw, Bolton.
The application to Bolton Council includes plans for a wind turbine, solar panels and ground source heating.
Make Architects say it would be the first zero carbon house in North West England, if permission is granted.
Stuart Fraser, partner at Make Architects, said: "The client has been heavily involved in the design process and is passionate about preserving the natural beauty of this area.
"It has been a privilege to be given a brief which has allowed us to truly test the boundaries of current sustainable thinking in terms of design and construction and to work along some leading experts in this field."
If planning permission is granted, work is expected to begin later this year.
WTF has that got to do with an eco-house? What about the resources that go into building it? How many responsible sized houses could be built instead? How many morons will copy it, and waste even more resources?
Unfortunately it is always these "aspirational" green homes that seem to make it into the mainstream media. Grand designs as well seems to focus more on the green mansions than green homes. So far I'm still looking at around 100m2 for a family of four, more doesn't seem necessary. The rented house I'm living in at the moment is around double that and if you exclude the area covered by kids debri we occupy well under half of that.
If you really want to wind me up plant me in front of the TV and show me some couple building an eco-holiday mansion to be occupied only on the weekends.
A bit off topic but I notice Kirstie and Phil are back. Although the insane boom has gone, the people seem to looking for just one house, not I would like a big house and a BTL to pay for it.
I was at a county council sponsored workshop on 'sustainable' building on Tuesday. We had a presentation by one of the district councils, which has just built a couple of strawbale houses, another by a developer with a genuine passion for improving new building practice. The council's house had to look rather like a, er, council house and the developer built 'executive homes' with rainwater catchment and insulation levels a tad higher than required by building regulations. But he was obliged to make as much money as he could.
The council's houses cost about £100k to build and the private ones a lot more.
I described our roundhouse, that has had a materials bill of £500 so far and might go as high as £1500 by the time it is finished and all fitted out (+labour).
Of course no normal person would buy a hand made round house like ours, would they?
And yet. There are almost 40000 caravans on the Lincolnshire coast and a lot of them are lived in permanently. These people seem content to live in a more or less one room space that wobbles a bit because it only costs a few grand. We could build much better permanent houses for less than the price of a mobile home. And yet the developers and councils think that a green building has to cost over a £100k.
We're starting the planning application for an eco village/hamlet of eight houses in the next couple of months with a view to starting the build in March 2011. The houses will be built as 4 semi's, one set underground, one semi underground (both taken), one timber pole framed with straw bale infill and one pair of conventional brick and block build, but to Passivhaus standards, as all the others will be. The size will be 100 to 120 sq m, although, if you get in quickly that can be negotiable as can the detail design.
The underground houses will have insulated cob walls with a roof of round timber poles, insulation, probably straw bale, and earthed over. I have all the poles required for both the underground and the pole frame houses. We will have the straw bales made this summer for use next year.
Each house will have its own solar hot water system and there will be PV as well and a wind turbine. There will, initially, be a diesel powered CHP unit with a battery store and a district heating system for backup heat to the houses.
There will be a central laundry room with a very efficient washing machine and air drying facilities for use on a rota basis. This will be essential so that the electricity system is not overloaded.
Each house will have a composting loo with urine separation and that and the grey water will irrigate our polytunnels, of which we have two now.
The veggie garden comprises 22 deep beds, 1.2m x 10m plus the equivalent of 4 more beds in the two polytunnels. We have another quarter of an acre allocated for a garden extension and we will be continuing the planting of a forest garden between the new houses. There is about 3 acres of coppice on site and I have permission to cut wood on Greenham Common. I am negotiating with the council to start the management of at least 10 acres of unmanaged coppice in the future.
Rainwater will be collected and pumped to a reservoir at the highest point on our land (about 15m head) from where it will be fed back to, initially, the gardens but with potential to go through sand filters and UV treatment for a potable supply should the mains supply break down.
The intention is that the houses will be self built, where possible, on small plots which will be either sold outright, with a share in the existing farm, garden, livestock and equipment, or on a shared ownership basis. We also have grazing rights on Greenham Common for five cattle but the common owner, West Berkshire Council, allow us to graze about 50 animals at the moment as there are not enough rights exercised to make use of the grazing.
The running of the village will be by voting of the house owners on a one house one vote basis (negotiable). Each house will have an agricultural tie, binding it to the land and to the agricultural use of that land. There will also be a legal agreement to ensure that any houses sold are only to people acceptable to the group as a whole. The purchase price of the land will acknowledge this. I have run this past the CEO of the Ecology Building Society and he has said that they would be interested in lending on the houses subject to all their normal requirements.
Sorry for the sales pitch but things are coming together and the opportunity was too good to miss. Fellow mods will no doubt delete this post if they think it unsuitable.
Maybe we ought to have a whole new forum devoted to this and similar topics.
We've got Preparations, but to me that doesn't seem quite the place for big projects that are happening now. It feels more like the place for the smaller (but still very important) everyday stuff, so I agree.
There will also be a legal agreement to ensure that any houses sold are only to people acceptable to the group as a whole. The purchase price of the land will acknowledge this.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
