Eco house.

What do you think?
This fabulous modern eco house has just been built in our town,right in the middle of a row of pre war houses.....................I can't help thinking if I had applied for planning permission for this I would have been refused.
But there, I supose in 100 years time the whole row will be similar.

 

I was once told by somebody that knows a planning officer that the art of winning a planning application is to have lots of spare money that you don't really want anymore that somebody else might like instead.

 

I agree it is a fab house. In building mega modern homes some conservation areas and/or councils can be tricky to negotiate, but only if the self builder doesn't plan properly. Most self builders (like ones seen on Grand Designs) commission a planning consultant at the same time as commissioning an architect -- long before any ground diggers move in.

The negotiation proposal and consultation it is not usually expensive, relative to the achievement of gaining planning permission, give or take a few thousand pounds. Good planning consultants that deal with planning consent know exactly how to go about it and for good result and good value. Planning officers do have some power but the bigger picture (ie EU laws and international CO2 targets) usually means that they don't have leg to stand on if the refusal is on parochial, narrow views, which is often the case.

Husband and I have lots of architect friends and husband is a cartographer (map maker) who is a cartagraphic consultant for a planning consultant. (Confusing I know!) Amazing buildings are built in inner city conservation areas, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty etc etc.

Thanks for posting the picture of the eco house. I like the planting at the front!!! Silver birch and drought resistant grasses I expect!!!

 

Modern architecture is like Marmite, that's for sure.

 

I dunno, its not as bad as some modern builds. And when you look at some of the 1950's and 1960's housing that was used to fill the gaps left in Victorian terraces by bombing, that house doesn't look that bad!

Buildings evolve. Don't forget, Victorian housing was seen as incredibly old fashioned and in need of demolishing in the 1950's. The beauty of the Georgian terraces in Dublin were seen as a symbol of British imperialism and were destroyed wholsescale before the Georgian Society realised what was being lost. Perhaps in time some modern buildings will be viewed the same way.

We aren't very good at rebuilding in a style suitable to surrounding buildings in this country, unlike our neighbours in Germany and France. In Berlin they are about to start rebuilding the Stadtschloss, the old city palace that was firebombed and eventually demolished by the GDR, to much controversy. In Paris there is even talk of rebuilding the Tuileries Palace, destroyed in the 1880's! Now that's controversial!

Have to say though, concrete brutalism can't be demolished quick enough!

 

I once read an article about a genuine eco-house, ie not one that uses lots of glass and fresh timber and heavy earth moving gear. A couple had bought a tiny piece of land at the endge of someone's farm, and built what was little more than a mud hut there. No heavy gear used, just a small structure in the middle of the woods, using whatever materials were in the vicinity. It was heated by a log burner that someone had donated, used a compost loo, and caught and stored rainwater. The whole thing blended in so well with its surroundings that you could walk right past it and not notice it unless you were actually looking for it. The couple lived in it for nearly 10 years, on their own land, using entirely sustainable resources. Nobody complained, and yet when the planning dept learned about it they were ordered to pull it down.

They appealled and submitted a retrospective planning app. They lost. Last I heard they were going to have to pull it down and go off and live like the rest of us, in an ordinary house, using ordinary non-renewable resources.

 

I think it has been built in the wrong place entirely - it looks dreadful there, but would probably look fab somewhere more suitable, i.e. a more rustic location. It would benefit from a lot more planting too.

 

I love Marmite...
I also very much like this house.
I often look at the old houses in York and wonder at the architecture spanning the centuries. The mix of styles is very pleasing.