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  • HPH284 : Build It magazine’s Self Build Education House – with Calum Taylor and Opinder Liddar

    HPH284 : Build It magazine’s Self Build Education House – with Calum Taylor and Opinder Liddar

    Calum Taylor and Opinder Liddar talk through the design and construction of the ‘Self Build Education House’ at Graven Hill.

    Interview with Calum Taylor and Opinder Liddar

    Calum Taylor is the owner of Build It Magazine, the longest running self build magazine in the UK. Together with their website and exhibitions, their aim is to provide expert advice and information in a practical and down to earth manner, to help self builders make the difficult decisions as easy as possible.

    Calum has been working on Build It’s Self Build Education House at Graven Hill with Opinder Liddar. Opinder is a director of lapd Architects. They are based in Oxfordshire and specialise in residential projects, particularly for self builders.

    It is a showcase of possibilities

    Coinciding with Build It magazine’s 30th anniversary, Calum’s idea for the Self Build Education House was to showcase the possibilities available to self builders by demonstrating the processes and some of the products that can be involved in a self build journey, whether or not they themselves were building at Graven Hill.

    It would also be a great experience for Chris Bates, the magazine’s editor, to have hands-on involvement with the project management.

    The house has been built on the Graven Hill development

    Graven Hill is a ground-breaking development: the first of its kind in the UK. The land was formerly owned by the Ministry of Defence before being sold to Cherwell District Council to develop. The site has planning permission for 1800 new homes, up to half of which are designated for self build.

    Calum says it has its fair share of cynics however, who question the plot sizes as being more like developer plots.

    “But I think it’s incredibly important that for self-build to really become the norm in the UK as opposed to what is done by a relatively few, relatively wealthy people, that we need to look at different models and we need to look at how you can have fantastic housing on smaller plots of land. And if you can do that with the profit on the land going back into the local community via the council then that strikes me as being a perfect model.”

    The plot passport outlines the parameters

    A number of plots had been allocated for show home use and, following a tender process, Calum successfully won a corner plot around the back of the houses featured on Grand Designs: The Street.

    Each plot comes with its own “plot passport” which defines certain parameters, such as maximum height and the footprint of where the house needs to be. With those established, the design can begin to develop as a response to the site aspects.

    It needs to work as a showcase, and a home

    In five years’ time the function will change from show house to a home that will be lived in, and this consideration formed part of the brief. It needs to have enough space for people to walk around in, while still feeling like a home.

    “Primarily we want people to look at it as ‘I want to live here. This is an amazing house.’ We don’t want them to think, ‘this works very well as a museum.’”

    With a plot restriction of 160m², the design was put in for planning at a size of 150m². The Graven Hill calculations don’t include basements and void spaces, so together with a basement plus an attic that would be prime for conversion, the overall area is closer to 230m².

    The budget has been for high-end specification

    Calum explains that the budget is rather difficult to define, as it’s not being constructed in the usual way. Typically a similar house might cost £2,000 per square metre, or around £470,000 in total. But as Build It’s complete guide to the house highlights, you could build the same size of house for substantially less if it wasn’t to the same high level of specification.

    By adding in the expensive finishes and details, Calum explains that it is giving people the opportunity to look at where they want to be spending their chunks of money.

    The corner plot dual aspects led much of the thought about design

    Opinder also likes the aesthetic of a steep roof pitch on a house, and to make a dramatic feature of the front he designed two gables, with the feature continuing around to the side.

    Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) was chosen as the construction method for a variety of reasons: it has good energy efficiency, is very airtight, performs well acoustically, and was particularly well suited for constructing the basement.

    Following discussions with Nudura, their ICF supplier, Opinder decided to push the design and show the materials at their best. The resulting design has a balcony that projects over the car parking area, hanging off a cantilevered wall that flies out at the first floor level. There are also frameless windows that turn the corner and are taken up to the underside of the gables.

    The ‘wow factor’ was an important consideration

    Often the space required for a plant room is underestimated, so the Build It house is a good example of showing how much area can be needed. Their plant room is in the basement to house the mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system, along with the inverter for the solar panels, battery storage, water softener, control hub for the Niko smart home system, and the amplifiers for the whole house sound system.

    Calum wants visitors to have the ‘wow factor’ when they walk in, so Opinder has designed a triple-height entrance hall. There you are greeted by a sculptural ash staircase that winds its way up. The eye is also drawn through towards the back of the building and the garden.

    A mixture of door types have been used, with pocket doors that slide into the walls, and a glass screen that gives the flexibility of sub-dividing the open space if needed.

    There is further architectural interest on the ground floor, with a curved wall that comes around from the cloakroom and into the kitchen, next to the floor to ceiling windows that give an amazingly light and spacious feel.

    The ground floor is open plan with lots of hard surfaces, but the oblique angles stop it from being acoustically noisy.

    The timber posi-joists, which are great for running services through, can be prone to noise transfer, so they have used acoustic boards, acoustic insulation and a screeded floor on top.

    On the first floor there is a glass balustrade which further enhances the connection with the outdoor space.

    Each bedroom is individual because of the different aspects and how they sit within the roof forms.

    It has been a typical self build journey in many ways

    The project hasn’t been without its challenges along the way.

    Calum explains that many of the difficulties have been in the project management of coordinating suppliers and contractors to work together.

    Issues were with communication, building to the same tolerances, and even incorrect measurements on site meaning that windows and doors didn’t end up exactly where they should have been.

    His tip for self builders is to keep on top of checking things like that because you could be storing up problems for a later date if things aren’t nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

    “The problems are about people and communication and scheduling things and dealing with the weather and all of those little curve balls that come your way and how you can actually try and continually pull it back to keeping it true to the vision of what you’re trying to create and as originally in the plans. Because it can be quite easy to deviate off slightly and end up with a house that doesn’t quite look and doesn’t quite perform in the way that you hoped it would.”

    The house shows what can be achieved on a tight plot

    With Calum working on the house from a Project Director level, it has been Editor Chris Bates who has been project managing the self build, going through the hard learning process and gaining valuable lessons and insights from it.

    Regular readers of Build It have been following the journey in the magazine and have been visiting to see the finished building. And for other members of the public with no prior experience of it, there are infographics around the house that help them understand the journey and the choices that were made around materials and suppliers.

    Going forward, the house will be paramount to the magazine’s editorial, as they can relate back to the experiences and decisions they made, or what they might have done differently in another scenario.

    Although the house went over budget and needed their contingency fund, (primarily due to weather delays), Opinder is keen for the house to show what is achievable on a fairly tight plot. He says it shows that it can be attainable for everybody and offers a genuine alternative to buying a typical “Noddy-box” house.

    More Graven Hill podcasts

    We’ve been following the Graven Hill scheme with interest for some time, so if you would like to know more about the background of the project and what it’s like to build there, then check out some of our previous podcasts:

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Build It magazine

    Follow Build It on Twitter

    Find out more about lapd Architects

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  • HPH222 : How easy is it to buy land at Graven Hill? – with Karen Curtin

    HPH222 : How easy is it to buy land at Graven Hill? – with Karen Curtin

    With the first phase well under way and residents already moving in, Karen Curtin, Managing Director of Graven Hill Village Development Company, talks through the process of finding and buying a plot at Graven Hill.

     

    Interview with Karen Curtin

    Karen Curtin has been in post as Managing Director on a permanent basis since July 2017. When we spoke with her predecessor, Philip Singleton, the first plots were being prepared for release and he gave an overview of the opportunities available and the vision for the scheme. Since then the site has been taking shape with plenty of landscaping, infrastructure going in and the first homes already completed and occupied.

    The current masterplan is for 1741 units, with 30% being affordable housing. So far they have sold around 100 of their “Golden Brick” self build plots, 50 affordable housing plots and 30 of their custom product.

     

    Inspiration for the Plot Shop came from the Netherlands

    While Graven Hill is a pioneering development in the UK, similar schemes exist elsewhere in the world, most noticeably Almere in the Netherlands. Inspiration for the Plot Shop came from there, with the idea being it could be an information hub providing details about the different products available and offering hints and tips about how to build a home.

    The Graven Hill Plot Shop is currently based in Bicester, a short drive away from the development. With so much building work going on there it has been important to consider the health and safety implications of members of the public visiting, but they plan to move the shop to the site once it is safe to do so.

    Monthly tours to the site are provided so people can get a feel of what it’s about and see the areas that have plots and houses for sale.

    At the Plot Shop a floor map shows all of the residential plots that are for sale, colour-coded to indicate the size and whether they are allocated for Golden Brick or custom projects. The map shows the plot locations (with some locations having different design flexibilities in terms of getting planning compliance within 28 days), notional house types with the number of bedrooms possible, the size of the plot and the maximum gross internal area.

    The sales team are able to tell you what the foundation type is for any given plot and provide a land price, but not advise how much the Golden Brick will actually cost. Until they know what the building design will be they won’t have the structural calculations to know how much it will cost to support the structure. Not knowing the Golden Brick price on reservation can be challenging for buyers, but the team are working on a product where they can offer a combined price for land, Golden Brick and superstructure.

     

    Golden Bricks are sold as serviced pieces of land

    Often an expensive element of building from scratch can be connecting the utilities to the site. At Graven Hill the services are delivered to the edge of the boundary where they can be brought into the property as required. Also included in the purchase of the land is the foundation for the design, the warranty and insurances, with the added benefit of having no VAT to pay.

    In order to streamline the planning process, purchasers are provided with a Plot Passport which lists the freedoms and constraints of the plot design. If the design is compliant, planning permission can be guaranteed within 28 days. Projects which don’t fulfill the Plot Passport criteria are allocated a Delivery Liaison Manager to offer advice and navigate the process through the reserved matters route.

     

    A beautiful village community of like-minded people

    Key to the success of the development is making a community where people want to live. The site has areas of mature woodland which are being retained along with plenty of green open spaces.

    On the village green will be a pub and there will be a school opening in 2020/21. There will be a retail area which might have a supermarket, coffee shop, health provision and smaller offices, and in Phase 2 there will be a million square feet of commercial space made available.

     

    Customers need to be fully educated about how the process works

    Part of the job of the sales team at the Plot Shop is to ensure that customers are fully educated about the process before making the purchase. They usually work with purchasers for around four to eight weeks getting them ready to be able to buy a Golden Brick plot. This will include making sure they are financially qualified and have engaged with suppliers to fully know what they’re doing, how much it’s going to cost, and the timescales in which things take place.

     

    Timescales are of great importance

    Once a plot has been reserved a purchaser has seven months to get to the position where they can exchange, then four to eight weeks before the foundation is delivered, and a further two years to complete the build.

    The timescales are important to ensure that people aren’t continually living amongst building sites, with plots only being released in phases to ensure projects are moving along at a similar pace.

    “The important thing for me is that I want people to come and live on Graven Hill and know that whilst they are like-minded people building their own houses, wanting to live on a unique community such as Graven Hill, there is a point where you want to be able to sit in your garden, have a glass of wine, look at the hillside and not see cranes and not hear people doing brickwork or landscaping work. So, that importance for me is about bringing that phasing on at the right space and time.”

     

    Experience from Phase 1 will feed into Phase 2 design

    When it comes to delivering Phase 2, careful consideration will be given as to what has sold well and been most popular in Phase 1. So far the plots that have sold best have been the larger plots and also the one and two bedroom plots, with the three bedroom ones being a bit slower to go. Everything learnt from the pioneers, Phase 1A and 1B, will feed into probably delivering an altered masterplan for Phase 2.

     

    Financial advice is available

    Like other developers, all of the finished products are eligible for the Help to Buy scheme. Karen says they are also lobbying the government to consider a Help to Build fund for people wanting to build their own house.

    Graven Hill have been working with BuildStore to make sure there’s a lender panel available there, along with independent financial consultants who can give advice. BuildStore also oversee the financial qualification process. This checks that if you’re a cash buyer you have the money to go forward with the transaction, or if you need to get a mortgage then you have to have a decision in principle, to ensure you have the funds to not only buy the land and the Golden Brick, but also complete the build.

     

    Health and safety on site has been one of the biggest challenges

    On a traditional site, members of the public are kept away until the houses are ready and can be moved into. With houses here working to different schedules and owners being responsible for their own plots, there has had to be a very strong health and safety presence.

    “It’s one of the most important things to me because in order for a site like this to work, everybody’s got to comply. That’s from wearing PPE to driving around the site at the right speed limits, making sure they book their deliveries because what we don’t want is three or four cranes on site at the same time.”

     

    More whistles and bells on the houses!

    Karen explains that with the saved equity from self building and cutting out the developer, rather than focussing on it being 20% cheaper, people often end up using that money to pay for premium finishes as they intend to live there longer than they might have done on a traditionally built site.

     

    Register with Right to Build

    Local authorities are required to research demand and maintain a list of people wanting self build plots in their area, and make plots available. Karen encourages people to register their interest in self build with their local authority to make sure that enough land is being made available to meet demand.

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Graven Hill

    Follow Graven Hill on Twitter

    Find out more about the Right to Build register

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Karen Curtin.

     

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  • HPH137 : Opportunities to self build at Graven Hill – with Philip Singleton

    HPH137 : Opportunities to self build at Graven Hill – with Philip Singleton

    Philip Singleton, Managing Director of the Graven Hill Village Development Company, talks us through what will be the UK’s largest self build housing project.

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    Interview with Philip Singleton

    Philip Singleton has a 14 year background in architecture followed by a further 14 years in management roles, covering delivery of projects, town regeneration and town planning.

    Since January 2016, Philip has been responsible for leading the delivery of the UK’s largest self build housing project, which is at Graven Hill, near to Bicester.

     

    A coming together of 2 public sector opportunities

    The project began a few years ago thanks to the political engagement and ambition of Cherwell District Council. They had been looking for an opportunity, which they found with the Ministry of Defence’s decision to sell a 188 hectare piece of land which had previously been a substantial distribution and storage space for military equipment.

    Cherwell District Council created a private company, the Graven Hill Village Development Company, to buy the land at market value, fund it over a 10 year period, and look for a return on its investment. The company has the freehold on the land that they are acquiring over a period of years, in phases, from the MoD.

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    “So the background was that there’s a vision, there’s a site opportunity, there’s a growth in the town, a great location, and then invest and set up in what’s been a small and growing private development company to execute and deliver the idea over a 10 year programme.”

     

    There will be heavy investment in the social, economic and physical infrastructure

    With millions of pounds already invested and continuing for a few years, it will be 2 or 3 years before the company see any return on that investment. They are spending money on the road infrastructure within, on the edge and beyond the site, the services and drainage, creating a primary school, a community centre, allotments and an orchard. And as well as providing individual plot opportunities they are also creating 30% of all the homes.

     

    It provides an opportunity for enterprising people

    The first release of plots is scheduled for 22 August 2016. The infrastructure will then start being rolled out in the autumn and those who have reserved plots can access them from August 2017. The land will come with foundations (as designed for the individual’s proposal) and services in place. Philip explains the time in between can be put to good use in terms of working with an architect on design development, perhaps looking at custom build opportunities as well as managing costs.

    While it is a long customer journey compared to buying from a volume house builder, it is enabling people to “really have the opportunity to build what they want, not what they’ve always had to buy.” They have recently appointed a sales team who will be working closely with the delivery team. They will be able to communicate with customers about their individual situations, finances and timescales, and make sure they have the ability to buy at the time required.

    With the market value of similar 3 bed detached properties in the area being around £375,000 and estimates for developing your own self build or custom build on the site for closer to £300,000, it is clear there are opportunities for owners to make a profit in the process. However, Philip is clear that they intend to sell to individuals, and not people wanting to use it as their own development opportunity. While there might be families, or people that want to group build and have an association of interest, they have systems in place to wheedle out those who are using it purely as an opportunity to make a financial gain.

     

    It is intended there will be less risk than for a normal self build

    The original masterplan for the site was created by the MoD. There is also a design code which sets out how the overall mass of a house can look relative to its neighbours, its position on the site and the pallet of materials that can be used according to the site position. The masterplan and design code gave comfort to the local planning authority so with such criteria already being outlined, they have been put into a Local Development Order and are able to say that if these criteria are met planning approval will be granted within 7-28 days.

    Putting in the foundations can be a risky part of a self build, but these plots are being sold with the foundations already put in place for the customer.

    Removing the planning and foundation risks can be an advantage when it comes to securing finance from a lender.

     

    There will be a diversity of choice

    The company are providing a number of options to customers. As well as the “golden brick detached” option of the plot with foundations pre-laid to the customer’s requirements, they are also offering a “tailor finished product”. They are developing terraced apartment blocks and giving people the option to work from a menu to decide how the interior of their home might look, including number of bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom type, etc. They will then be handed the keys to their home that has been designed to their own internal specification.

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    It is hoped a micro economy will be created

    The site is in a great location with Bicester being a growth town with 2 stations connecting it to Marylebone, Birmingham, Oxford and in a few years time, Cambridge. It also has useful links by way of the M40.

    Philip explains that in addition to being well connected to other areas he is hoping that there will be a diverse micro-economy of people that have built their homes and also want to work from the area too. The apartment blocks will be at the centre of the village, with the ground floors being dedicated to retail and to live/work space.

    “Graven Hill is all about a community of builders building a community. Because I think the purpose and interest is very common between all those self builders before they’ve even moved in.”

     

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    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Philip Singleton

     

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Graven Hill

    Follow Philip Singleton on Twitter

     

    Please connect with me