Eco Homes, Energy Efficient Homes, Build a Better Home : House Planning Help
Ben discusses the frustrating reality of watching developers build thousands of uninspiring houses in his home town, while he struggles to find a single suitable plot on which to build his dream home.
If you’re building a house in the Outer Hebrides, then you’re probably spoilt for choice when it comes to plots of land. But if, like me, you’re hunting for land in a place of greater demand, the job becomes much more challenging.
Tim Nicholson, Joanne Bowlt and their two boys live in a 1960s end of terrace house in Oxford. Recently they started work on upgrading the property but why did they choose to retrofit? This short video explains.
Initially when they started thinking about how they could live in a more energy-efficient home they considered building a new house. However, as suitable plots in Oxford are very hard to come by, they decided to retrofit instead. They also wanted to help improve the existing housing stock, around 80% of which will still be in use in 2050. In order to make our houses zero carbon by then, this is where the bulk of the work needs to be and it's a massive challenge.
So Tim and Joanne bought a property that they knew needed a lot of work doing to it and would lend itself well to a renovation. They were keen to do this to a very high standard and that meant disruptive work needed to take place. While this is going on they have moved into the house next door.
Although Tim says energy efficiency is a priority, he is also doing this to create a comfortable home that is economical to run – something that is fit for modern living for many years to come. With such extensive work taking place there is also the opportunity to remodel the interior and improve the layout to suit their needs. Tim hopes that the Oxford Green House will inspire others into action.
Embracing a fabric first approach, the strategy is to use very high levels of insulation and to create an airtight building envelope in order to retain the heat. This project also requires high quality components such as triple-glazed windows and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery to maintain a good indoor air quality but without losing the heat. Thermal bridges will also be eliminated.
Tim says the biggest challenge – other than funding the project – has been deciding how to address the insulation of the walls. Whereas taking the roof off to insulate was relatively simple, working out whether to insulate the walls internally or externally was trickier because they weren't sure what they could get permission for and there was also a restrictive covenant in place which meant getting permission from the neighbours! The final approach involves both internal insulation (at the front of the house) and external insulation.
The completed project will also utilise renewable energy in the form of solar PV and solar thermal hot water panels.
Tim believes anyone doing a renovation should consider how to take it further: “If you're refurbishing a house anyway, the additional cost and work of making it energy efficient is potentially very modest. If you're building an extension you've got to insulate to a good standard but actually why not treat building regulations as the minimum standard that you go to.”
If you're doing work anyway, why not go that extra mile.
We hope to bring you some more updates on this project.
Do you feel that you're lacking a connection with your environment?
Would you like to live in a house where you are in control of the services?
This article is a case study of a couple who created an autonomous house. We find out why they did it and how different it is to live this way.
Mike Coe and Lizzie Stoodley built themselves an autonomous house in Cropthorne, Worcestershire. Although being autonomous might imply no connection to the outside world, in their case this is not strictly true because they are linked to the grid (albeit to export more electricity than they use!).
If they were completely self-sufficient and off-grid in all respects they would have an autarkic house, but autonomous is a better description of their home. They have no gas supply, they derive their water from harvested rain and they deal with their own human waste.
The initial seed of an idea came in the 1990s, before they had any plans to build a house. Mike was an ITV News cameraman and he was sent to Southwell, Nottinghamshire, on an assignment to do a story on a new kind of house.
Mike describes his visit: “Nobody had the faintest idea what it was. Only when I got there did I realise that it was fascinating. We did an interview with Robert Vale and he showed us around and I thought this is a really interesting project.”
The feature was never shown on ITV because another story broke, but Mike's journey was not in vain. He had been inspired.
Many years later Mike and Lizzie were considering a long-term plan to leave London and live somewhere less hectic, when they returned to the idea of an autonomous house.
Increasingly concerned about what the human race was doing to the environment and with a strong desire to take action somehow, the ideas came together in their ultra low energy house. It would be based on the house at Southwell but would try to take everything to the next level, with improved materials and greater experience, etc. As this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they wanted to do this properly and take the ideas as far as was sensible.
In 2006 Mike and Lizzie bought their plot of land
Mike was convinced that the basic configuration of Brenda and Robert Vale's house was correct. It had a very high thermal mass – based on a concrete core – surrounded by a huge amount of insulation, built as airtight as possible with super high performance windows. Although Brenda and Robert Vale's house had a small wood stove, Mike and Lizzie believed they could create a house that didn't need a heating system and just relied on incidental heat (body warmth, cooking, heat from appliances and so on).
While the house was designed and constructed using Passivhaus principles it hasn't been certified, although this could (easily) be done at a later date. In fact the primary energy requirement of their house is between 3 – 4 kWh per m2 per year, which is four to five times better than the Passivhaus requirement.
In terms of design the house is upside-down. So the living area is upstairs, taking advantage of the fact that heat rises. In a house with no heating it makes sense to live where it's warmer during the winter. Also, during very hot summer weather, the bedrooms, being downstairs, stay cool and are therefore more comfortable.
If Mike ever builds another house he would definitely do it the same way again.
Living in an autonomous house requires more thought than a conventional dwelling. However, it's good thought! The user needs to understand how the building works in order to get the most out of it. For example, controlling the temperature is about considering what to do with the heat. During the summer, Mike and Lizzie warm up the core of the house to a comfortable temperature. They make sure that they close windows and doors when they need to store up heat for the winter. Also, in autumn and winter the mechanical ventilation system is in heat reclaim mode whereas during the summer they don’t reclaim any heat.
Mike says: “You’re much more in touch with the seasons and the outdoor environment and you modify your behaviour accordingly. You have to be prepared in the depths of winter to wear a jumper.”
In today's world, so long as we have money we know (or perceive) we can have the resources. This not only shifts the responsibility onto somebody else – our service providers – but it distances us from what we're actually doing to the environment. To live in an autonomous house it is necessary to be more in touch with the environment which Mike sees as a very good thing.
Mike and Lizzie have 17 tonnes of water storage in their basement, but they still need to modify their behaviour if they are anticipating a prolonged period of dry weather. This might mean not cleaning the car or taking showers less often.
“We derive all of our water supply from water that falls on the roof. We store it, we purify it, we drink it, we wash in it and we wash our clothes in it. And it ends up back in a soakaway in the garden.”
The same amount of water enters the site as would have done had the house never been built. All they do is borrow it.
Mike explains that it’s not environmentally and economically sensible to go off-grid if you have access to a mains electricity supply. This is because storing electricity is not straightforward. For example they could use banks of lithium or nickel metal hydride accumulators but they contain a lot of chemicals. Plus, with this set-up there might still be trouble supplying the house at periods of peak demand.
So, at the current time there is little financial or environmental advantage. Instead they effectively use the grid as a battery!
Most of the electricity generated by their 2.3kW ground-mounted photovoltaic array gets exported because the energy demands of the house are so low. At night time they consume power from the grid, but it's a small amount. The total electricity bill for the house is in the region of £350 per year and as the payment they receive from the photovoltaic array is about £900, they make about £500 income.
There's a lot of energy involved in providing houses with clean water and removing the sewage.
While doing his research Mike discovered that 30 – 40% of the water consumed in a normal house is used for flushing the toilets. In most cases it is also clean drinking water, which is of course very wasteful.
Human waste is actually quite a useful substance because it has similar properties to a fertiliser. Mike sums it up well: “What we normally do is we mix useful human waste with useful clean drinking water and we produce a problem substance called sewage, which we then have to pump several miles using energy and process it in a local sewage treatment plant.”
The composting toilet being installed
With heating and lighting, adjusting lifestyle can often result in huge energy savings. However, when it's comes to human waste you can't really reduce the number of times you need to go to the loo! That's why Mike and Lizzie were keen to bring all those services in house and provide them without using any external energy.
Mike explains how it works: “Every two months, with two of us living here, we have to maintain the chamber which means we have to drain out all the liquid compost and we have to take out the solid compost [that's mixed with wood shavings], but by the time you come to do that it genuinely isn’t unpleasant.”
This compost then goes on the garden and this also means that they don’t need to buy any fertilisers.
Building an ultra low energy house is in a sense adding an element of autonomy, because you’re reducing your reliance on external fuel supplies. Reflecting on how their life would alter in times of scarcity or blackouts, Mike says they would stay warm because there's no heating system to go off! There would be no issues with their water either. Electricity would be fine during the day but they might be inconvenienced with a prolonged power cut.
Mike and Lizzie have never looked back since embracing this way of living. Mike concludes: “The main thing is you have to think and you have to want to be responsible for your actions. That isn’t a hardship – it’s quite rewarding. I think it’s a good way to live.”
We often hear that house affordability is what's stopping first time buyers from getting onto the property ladder. However could self build deliver more affordable solutions? This case study illustrates that there are savings to be made, although there will also be challenges to overcome.
In fact when Brian Waite was looking to build a house [in the UK] for his retirement it was the plot of land that was so difficult to find: “Plots seem to be cheaper when they've got a house on them, which is a crazy situation! So we bought a plot with a house on it, but the house was just that little bit too good to knock down.”
The house that they bought came with planning permission for an extension where the garage was and then a new garage could be built the other side of the driveway. Brian thought it would be a simple matter to have a smaller extension and a slighter bigger garage (i.e. the straw bale house) but the planners didn't agree.
So their new house is actually not their house but Brian's office and a smaller scale version of his prototype. It was after converting his former home, a medieval barn in Kent, that Brian had the idea for it.
He liked straw as a material because it was a low cost, sustainable option that would allow him to reach the high levels of insulation he desired (without having to use a synthetic material with a high embodied energy). Brian couldn't understand why it wasn't used more often.
After looking at other straw bale houses and not liking them, he decided to design his own!
This may not be a path for everyone but Brian was a structural engineer and this clearly gave him an advantage when it came to working out what he wanted to do: “I just couldn't stomach load-bearing straw bales because logic tells you that in time they will lose some of their integrity and settle. That means that the roof loads in a normal straw bale house would be transferred straight onto the plaster and render.”
He was keen to keep the design simple and used a bowed timber A-frame, like a medieval cruck.
These single beams can be varied in length and height as required but the whole interior is free of structural restrictions.
Brian reflects on the simplicity of the build by saying that the most expensive piece of equipment on site was a cement mixer. There was no call for a crane either – a £20 hand winch did the job!
“I was 68, 69 when I built it and I did it entirely on my own, except for the lime plastering. If I can do it, definitely a younger person can.”
Brian also devised a system to air the bales and keep moisture content under control. Normally a large eaves overhang would provide the necessary weather protection but he had relocated to Cumbria where the rain is often horizontal!
“I don't know what size of eaves I would need to protect the walls but in my case the tiles cover every bale so there's no worry about weather protection on an exposed site, but I also exploit a chimney effect. Because the tiles come down to within a metre of the ground, the air entry is behind the gutter at that level and the exit is about 7m up, so you've got a very strong chimney effect that I've used to draw air over the exterior of the bales (underneath the tiles and over the exterior of the bales) to wick out any moisture.”
The bales are rendered with lime on both sides.
The bales don't have to be laid like bricks as they just slot in. Out of 380 bales used Brian only needed to adjust the length of two or three. He also had to work his way around the Cumbrian weather when it came to putting them in. Although originally intended to go in from the outside, he had to devise a way of doing it from inside, which actually worked better in the end.
The cost of this kit would be somewhere around £30,000 (US$50,000) and Brian has registered the design and has patents pending on some elements of it.
He reckons this could be an affordable solution for first-time buyers, although the land would then become the most significant cost. Find out more about Brian Waite via his website.
This weekend I celebrated my 37th birthday. Don't be confused by the pavlova with the number '36' on it! That was my wife's idea of a joke as it was my last day of being 36.
If you've been reading my blog you will know that we want to create our very own energy efficient home. I decided to put a time limit on it, a target, to be inside this house before I turn 40 and it's a bizarre feeling to think that one of those years has been and gone.
Anyway I've come a long way in that time and I'd like to take a few moments to reflect on some highlights. Thanks to everyone who has helped advance my learning in some way, shape or form. There are definitely a lot of passionate people in ecological construction.
The first thing that springs to mind is producing the video inserts for the UK Passivhaus Awards 2013. Although this was disguised as work, it was an opportunity to see these ultra low energy buildings first hand and chat to the people who created them. All of these people were immensely proud of what they'd achieved and I got the sense that it would be hard for them to go back to building how they used to. This ‘no looking back' attitude is one of the reasons why I believe we will see steady growth in new-build houses that meet the Passivhaus standard.
I have sat through many talks over the last year and there was one given by Chris Parsons for the CIOB where the data was so compelling that I just thought to myself, this sells itself. This may be a terrible analogy but it's the only thing that comes to mind so bear with me. When my wife got her first iPhone, it was such a leap forwards from what she had before (or what any of our friends had had before) that I didn't even have to weigh up whether there were better options on the market. Getting one was an upgrade, a no-brainer. I think the same is true of Passivhaus. When you actually start researching it, considering the pros and cons, and experiencing houses that meet the standard, it is easy to see why the uptake is so great in countries such as Germany and Austria.
Secondly, I've made some great friends. Not just amongst the AECB and the Passivhaus Trust but around the world. I feel particularly aligned with Matthew Cutler-Welsh from Home Style Green, who is championing better building in New Zealand. He makes a very good point that there are far more similarities in building around the world than there are differences. I know I probably say this a lot but online community is really important for ecological builders. It's hard to keep a good idea down on the Internet!
I've also been really encouraged by self builders who have contacted me to say that information on House Planning Help has been useful. This is music to my ears!
Over the last year I have built up my knowledge, mostly, from chatting to people! Having to curate that information onto this website has been a challenge at times, but there is no doubt that it's been worth it. Listening to interviews multiple times, making notes and proof-reading blog posts has really helped the information sink in. What's best is revisiting that information weeks or even months later and realising that I have a deeper understanding of the concepts that were being explained or perhaps even a first-time grasp of something I let go over my head!
Hearing the same messages such as ‘fabric first' crop up over and over again has been really constructive (when you're a forgetful person like me).
Currently I am working on an eBook to reference the learnings of this first year and I'm hoping this will be another valuable experience for both me and the community.
Setting up a website and podcast is not something I've done before but I had been learning about content marketing for a number of years. This was my chance to have a go with a topic that I am passionate about.
It's yet another area where I continue to learn, but when I compare my content from day one to today I can definitely see an improvement. I hope to keep taking this to the next level.
Over the year there's been a total of 16,425 podcasts downloaded. If you check out the statistics below you might notice an early blip in podcast downloads. This was when I released an interview with the eminent Professor Wolfgang Feist.
The website traffic has also built up so that now we are consistently getting about 1200 unique visitors to the site. Here's a snapshot from the last month from Google Analytics.
Of course it's easy to get tied up in website traffic and podcast downloads but my definite major purpose is to help spread the message of ecological builders. I feel everyone should know about better practices and approaches, even if they choose not to adopt them.
There you go. A couple of my highlights from the year gone by. I think it would only be fitting to finish with where I would like to go in the coming year. Quite simply, I want to do more of the same.
I want to improve the quality of the content I produce and also increase the quantity! I can only do this by bringing more money in. I may not be there yet but I'm going to keep at it.
It would also be great to see energy efficiency register as an important factor to consider when buying a house. Clearly, getting this into the mainstream is a bigger challenge, but something I am convinced will happen over time naturally; it would just be good to act as a catalyst.
One of the funny things about my exploration into what houses we should be building in the 21st Century is that I hear the same messages crop up time and again. This is actually good for me, as someone who's learning about energy efficiency and sustainable design, because it reinforces the wisdom.
If I only had one message to pass onto a newcomer to self building, it would be ‘to minimise the amount of energy your house will need before even thinking about generating energy.'
While this has been a message I've heard repeated in various guises from my early podcasts up until now, do I really understand how far you can take this concept? Probably not.
This is where our podcast episode with Jonathan Hines from Architype is fascinating. I've always thought of minimising energy losses as taking a fabric first approach (really good insulation, airtightness, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, etc.) but what I didn't understand is that this means the design, too. The endless possibilities of the building's form, for example, will each impact on the energy use. So design decisions can have major repercussions. This is why an emphasis on simplicity should lead to a more energy efficient building. This doesn't mean boring but something that is elegantly simple (as Architype like to say). It's a process of refinement.
That's where I want to consider older houses for a moment. I have always been drawn to period properties in preference to modern houses but have not yet fully appreciated why. Perhaps I've hit on part of the answer in my conversation with Jonathan. He mentioned last year's RIBA Future Homes Commission study:
“It reported some very interesting findings, that people liked the idea of a modern house but they tended not to buy them because what they saw in them was of poor architectural quality. So the things they like in a house are light airy spaces, high ceilings, you know, good sized windows. Now they see those in a Georgian or Victorian house and they don’t see those in the new houses that they look at. So they’ll buy an old house, albeit it’s cool and draughty and it’s going to cost a fortune to heat because the architectural qualities there overweigh those sort of practical things. My belief is that if we can combine the practical things of energy efficiency and lower running costs with good architectural quality then we are on to a winner.”
This is really interesting if we consider what was going on around the time of the Georgian (1714 – 1830) and Victorian (1837 – 1901) eras. It was the years of British Empire and also the big changes set in motion by the Industrial Revolution. Energy was not an issue. The world's wealth was brought back to London and this was reflected in the grandeur of the architecture.
In today's world things are very different. Our population is increasing at the same time as we're squandering our fossil fuel reserves. A lot of materials are finite. Would the Victorians follow the same path now as they did back then? I would argue that it wouldn't even cross their minds. They'd be looking to what would be the most sense now for the situation we face.
It does seem to me that there are always people with the right answers out there. We just need to find them and listen to what they have to say! That said, I really urge you to check out my interview with Jonathan.
When I started the House Planning Help website, it was partly because I didn't like the way my local area was changing. I felt powerless to do anything as large-scale developers put up apartments close to where I live, boosting the population in quite a short space of time. For a historic market town, these nondescript blocks seemed out of place, the wrong scale, and I was convinced that it changed the mood of the area.
However, as I've researched more into the choices available to planners I suppose I realise that there are no easy solutions. If you are going to build new houses you have to put them somewhere!
It was during my chat with Mark Brinkley, when he suggested that high density housing had some sustainability benefits, that I became intrigued. Where would I put new houses if I had to make that call?
What I'd like to do is keep all the green spaces, which technically are protected by green belt status anyway (fingers crossed on that one), whilst at the same time not flooding the town with new properties. Already I can see I'm not very good at this!
So I wanted to work through what the outcomes might be of choosing a low density and high density path.
Density, in this respect, refers to the number of people that live on a given size of land.
I personally believe that low density housing is the best option for our health. As humans we need to see something green! A low density neighbourhood promises to be quiet and private, and have very little traffic. Is this not the perfect place to bring up our kids?
This is where it's time to throw a spanner in the works. While we do technically have the space for these developments, it does still come at a price (as land is a finite commodity). Once we build somewhere we very rarely hand it back to nature. So urban sprawl will occur with low density housing. Plus every time we build on a piece of farm land we are reducing our food growing potential.
Here comes the second spanner. With each day that goes by, as a world we are becoming more conscious that climate change is a reality. If we are serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions (and other greenhouse gases), then our drive for energy efficiency must intensify and for that to happen we really don't want to have to use our cars to get everywhere. Low density housing encourages our dependence on vehicles.
Increasing the amount of high density housing we build will reduce the urban sprawl and allow us to keep our beloved green spaces. Hurrah! It's also much easier to walk or cycle to shops and services because everything is closer together. Public transport becomes a lot more effective and viable beyond a certain threshold, too, which in turn saves a lot of energy. Areas of high density housing also tend to have a certain buzz about them, with more in the way of entertainment, restaurants, etc. Another benefit is that infrastructure costs diminish as density increases, because a lot of it is already there (electricity, gas, water, etc.).
As you might expect there are some drawbacks! It may be noisy and lack privacy. An area of high density housing could also be defined by the services on offer. For example, if there are lots of swanky restaurants and expensive boutiques, the chances are families on high incomes will be drawn to that area and prices will go up. Conversely, where it's all budget fast food outlets and discount shops, the dynamic will change again. While nobody has found a connection between high density housing and crime, there may well be a correlation between low income areas and crime. This could be an indirect consequence of high density housing. Also, increasing housing density can create a problem for local schools that may not be able to cope with the new influx of pupils.
Coming back to my hypothetical situation of where to build the houses in or around my home town, it does seem that I would come up against opposition no matter how much thought I put into it. I suppose I would tend towards increasing the town's density (perhaps as they are doing) but do it in such a way that it doesn't feel like it! There are some examples of narrow terraced housing that actually has a higher density than you might think. I'm sure that other clever design is at the heart of creating a good solution.
I do wonder whether we need to think about population growth, too, as part of any housing plans. I'm sure politicians will always want more housing because it is a great way to stimulate the economy, but what are the benefits of an ever-increasing population? Am I a bad person for thinking that we've got quite enough people on this planet already? Plus, there are natural limits to population and we are probably hurtling towards them. As Thomas Malthus wrote many years ago population will we be kept in check by war, pestilence or famine. What's coming our way?
Do you think we should be building more low or high density housing? What is the right mix for creating great places to live?
Do you wonder why others aren't focussed on getting themselves into an energy efficient home?
What factors undermine the logical drive for energy efficiency?
At this time it's crucial that we do not make the wrong decisions when it comes to building or retrofitting houses.
Whilst on holiday I happened to bump into some people who worked in the shale gas industry. They were very pleasant but, as with the bloke down the pub who I discovered had voted UKIP the other day, there was a slight tension when I started asking more in-depth questions. To be honest they allayed many of my fears, but perhaps armed with more knowledge myself I could have dug deeper.
Anyway, one aspect that became very apparent from the conversations was that they did not see themselves as having any responsibility in making sure that the energy they extracted goes as far as it possibly can. I know this probably isn't part of their job description but for some reason I found it unsettling.
It got me thinking as to some of the factors that might be slowing down the roll out of energy efficient homes.
Although energy efficiency makes sense, it's amazing how quickly it can fall down the list of priorities when cheap energy is plentiful. When I initially started my research, I was unaware of the energy crisis of the 1970s and the subsequent drive for better housing in the 1980s. Unfortunately, despite many solutions being exhibited at trade shows such as Homeworld, none of the energy efficient designs made it into the mainstream.
In our current predicament of depleting fossil fuel reserves it would seem very unlikely that the cost of energy could go down, but if the extraction of shale gas leads to another ‘oil rush' then it could happen. The worst case scenario would be if subsidies were given to these companies in a desperate bid to keep the energy coming rather than address the efficiency of our building stock.
Companies that make a living from the extraction of coal, gas, oil, etc., are ultimately going to be out of business on this planet. It may take 500 years, 200 years or happen much sooner than we all imagine, but these finite resources will eventually run out (and we also know some of them can't be used anyway without triggering the final disastrous consequences of climate change). For a very lucrative business, they will not take this lying down. As experts in locating and extracting resources, with considerable funding behind them, don't expect them to wind down their activities, even if that might be what's best.
Governments, more than ever, have a big role to play in driving up the standards of our homes. Clearly this can't happen overnight but with an over-arching goal and an incremental approach, at least things will be moving in the right direction.
Of course, this is often easier said than done. In the UK, the Code for Sustainable Homes was such regulation, with the long term plan to make all homes zero carbon by 2016. Unfortunately it's falling on some rocky ground as its box ticking approach seems to favour bolt-on gadgets over fabric efficiency. This is where the government's contemplating scrapping it and clinging onto the positive spin of ‘cutting the red tape to get the UK building again'. Simplification of systems is a good thing but I personally believe getting rid of targets and moving deadlines is not a good solution. Of course, the Code needs an overhaul though!
While simple measures (such as installing loft insulation) can help our homes perform better, more radical retrofits are invasive. Whether insulating externally or internally there is likely to be loss of features, which can be hard for some homeowners to accept. Plus the more airtight the building becomes, the more important it is to have a clear ventilation strategy. With no straightforward solutions it's easy to favour new build or consider retrofitting the property at a later date when better approaches might be available.
For some homeowners it will be a lack of finances that stops them from upgrading to something more efficient. For others it could be the thought of living for the day – who cares about the right or sensible thing to do when they can have their dream kitchen! House appearance may also play a part in the psyche, deterring some individuals who imagine energy efficient homes only to be rather ugly boxes.
For those who live in a reasonable size of house and are feeling the pinch, the most immediate way to reduce running costs is to move into a smaller house. This helps the individual but doesn't address the overall problem of rising utility bills. It could also lead to a period where a lot of larger houses become vacant or are only partially heated during the colder months.
What classes as an energy efficient home to one person might be laughable to another. As with labels such as ‘eco' or ‘sustainable' or ‘low energy' homes, it's all about quantifying what these things are before they become the buzzword of the day. That's one reason that an as-built standard such a Passivhaus makes life much simpler: you can immediately tell whether a house hits the mark.
What do you think is slowing down progress to energy efficient homes? Is there anything you'd like to add to the list?
Although I live a few miles away from one of Ebenezer Howards's garden cities, Welwyn Garden City, I confess to knowing very little about the garden cities movement. I've heard the term crop up from time to time, even at the beginning of this year as a re-visited housing strategy, but I haven't taken the time to find out more. That's why I've been doing some research on it for this post. In light of some of the recent subjects we've been discussing on the podcast, it's also made me wonder whether garden cities eventually just become cities!
First, let's look at some of the fundamentals of garden cities and consider Ebenezer Howard's vision.
Ebenezer Howard was a reformist who sought to provide an alternative to the overcrowded cities (where standards were deteriorating) by creating self-contained communities, each surrounded by green belt land. He wanted a place that balanced housing, industry and agriculture, finding a middle ground between town and country, and enjoying the benefits of each without the disadvantages. Community was at the heart of this, with a co-operative approach envisaged for land ownership and food grown on the surrounding fields. Howard also proposed that satellite cities would surround a larger city (as in the plan below).
It's interesting to note that Howard had limited practical experience but nonetheless managed to plan and realise two cities in Hertfordshire, UK. His ideas were documented in the publication ‘To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform' in 1898 and were later revised for ‘Garden Cities of To-morrow'. Making it a reality on the ground was a massive challenge. In 1899, with backing from wealthy investors, construction of Letchworth Garden City began. Some of Howard's ideals had to be comprised, as investors sought to profit from the new town whereas Howard had proposed a much more egalitarian society.
For his second garden city, about 20 years later, Howard bought the land himself. Welwyn Garden City would benefit from the experienced gained in Letchworth.
Creating a city from scratch is quite a responsibility. As I think about Welwyn Garden City nearly 100 years after it was conceived, there is no doubt it is desirable. A magnificent boulevard is still a striking feature. Trees line the roads. The grass verges are wider than perhaps they needed to be and there is space. I personally feel this ‘connection with something green‘ is vital in all our lives but I can see the flip side of the coin. Critics of garden cities suggest that low density housing wastes land and invariably forces us into our cars. In an energy-constrained future, we need sustainable urban spaces. Striking that balance is difficult.
I have questions about whether you can maintain the size of a town or city in this current cycle of growth. Yes, we cannot keep on multiplying as a species indefinitely, as the planet does not have the resources, but where does that leave us with creating great places to live? If there is an optimum amount of people for a town or city – as Howard proposed in his garden cities with 32,000 per satellite city – there will come a time when the city is full. The only way to maintain this population would be to police it. Construction would have to stop or only replace like for like (in terms of capacity). As far as I'm aware we're not doing that.
Part of Howard's vision was to start the next city at this point anyway. As these new cities are not on the cards, what happens to the population of existing garden city? Is a green belt only a protected area until more land is needed? My experience is that towns keeping growing. If the green belt is respected then old houses get removed in favour of new higher density housing. Gardens get split in half and have a new house at the other end. Over time this must have an impact.
We have to set our targets high, like Howard did with his Utopian dream, when we are planning places to live. In an energy-constrained future, the vision of our cities – particularly if starting from scratch – is more important than ever. Sustainable urban systems are essential as the greatest impact on the natural environment is made, ironically, in our cities. Although this self sufficiency did not happen in Howard's two garden cities, perhaps it's becoming a much more relevant idea once again. If travel becomes a luxury, working where we live or remotely via the Internet would increase. We'd also need to cater for the products that we used to import from the other side of the world.
The more I consider the self build market, the more I like it. Self build communities seem to encapsulate the passion that Ebenezer Howard had for planning better places to live, the only difference being that everyone has an input once the master planning has been done. Not only are houses likely to be built to a better overall standard, but they are bespoke to the individual's needs and this whole construction process creates bonds in the community. It seems possible that this is the natural progression of the garden city model.
Is the garden city movement something that is still relevant today? How do we create sustainable urban areas?
I do find it fascinating how simple things can make a huge impact on an area. Without turning into a neighbourhood busybody, which I realise I may already be!, I want to talk about a few trees that have been given the chop in my local area. Some of them will grow back, of course. Others have gone for good.
Let's start with the one at the top of my hitlist. There was a lovely bit of vegetation on a walkway between a road and the local DIY store. When I saw what had happened the first time, I got a double pang in my stomach, because not only had we lost the trees but we now get a good view of some graffiti, which must have been there in the past but was hidden by the foliage. It's hard to say what more has been lost. It's a tiny chink of urbanisation that has taken place. On its own, it means very little. I believe the cumulative effect is more troublesome.
Maybe the council will not have to worry about that section now as there's nothing left to maintain. The nothingness is part of the problem though in my view. Perhaps if there had been plans for a beautiful array of flowers or smaller bushes I might have felt slightly more optimistic. Instead, I try to tot up how this adds with other telltale signs of increasing urbanisation.
I can see why it happens. Parking is an issue and you want to get out of the game of finding a space in the permit zone. So, that small patch of land in front of the house will just about fit a car on it! Cue the paving going down and the odd parking space emerges . . . sometimes with a car angling into the road. Developers can even look for these opportunities in a bizarre twist, where it makes the property listing tick another box of ‘parking space'.
I keep wracking my brains for a better alternative but I haven't had any joy yet. When this happens in one spot it looks a bit of a mess, but life moves on. I've driven through parts of West London where it's happened everywhere and it almost has that ‘broken window' feeling. A thriving community needs its outward sign that people care. Do car ports send out the message that parking the car is more important than creating a place with a great feeling? Just a thought.
I understand the need for new housing but the impact of slashing back a large area of scrubland has removed the nice natural break between one part of town and another. Now, you can see the flats on the other side, which offer much higher density of housing than the traditional railway cottages. No doubt this view will change again when the next development begins. It would be fantastic to see more self build, as there might be more of a drive to have local input into creating green spaces around the new abodes.
Again it's that weird sense that something's missing. Near the local sports centre this time, a number of trees had been cut down in the car park. One benefit of doing this is regaining all the light that might be owed to the space. I'm imagining the roots might have been causing trouble but it's that extreme contrast.
I don't really have a conclusion to this article – it's just something I needed to communicate to someone! I've really written it to see what comments you might have. Is it a natural part of any space to become more urbanised? Do you have examples of where it's gone the other way? I'd love to hear from you.
