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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

    Please connect with me

    Subscribe, rate and review the podcast in iTunes

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  • HPH268 : The state of self build in the UK – with Jason Orme

    HPH268 : The state of self build in the UK – with Jason Orme

    Self-builder and renovator Jason Orme reflects on the main challenges you face if you want to tackle a house build in the UK.

    Interview with Jason Orme

    Jason Orme is the Editorial Director of Future Plc, the publishing house behind Homebuilding & Renovating magazine, of which he is the former editor. He would categorise himself as a serial self builder, but more recently has taken on a renovation project in Derbyshire with the intention that it will be his family home for at least a few years.

    Doing a renovation has made him a bigger fan of self build!

    With the renovation and remodelling project coming to an end, Jason says the process has been more ambitious, costly and stressful than a self build. Once you have planning permission on a self build you are theoretically in a position to have control over everything, whereas with renovation you tend to be at the mercy of the unknown with old houses that are full of surprises. It’s not something he would be keen to repeat!

    Despite that, Jason and his family were drawn to the project because of a love of the plot, the location and even the original house to some extent. They didn’t need to create much additional space, but rather remodel what was already there and make it more energy efficient.

    Covering up the 1960s ugly stone-clad facade, they built a third layer around the outside which provides excellent levels of insulation, although airtightness will always be more of a challenge to achieve than if starting from scratch on a new build.

    Although Jason is happy in the house and looking forward to enjoying it for the next few years, he hasn’t ruled out another self build in the future, although it would take something special to move away from the location they now have.

    Justify spending on the house by calling it an investment, not expenditure!

    Jason has always tended to put any spare money into property, which he hopes will end up being an investment rather than a cost. He says he’s happy to have large outgoings and mortgages on properties because ultimately it should pay back, while at the same time you have the enjoyment of living there.

    Self build is delivering fewer homes than ten years ago

    2005 saw a peak in self building of up to 19,000 homes a year. That is now closer to 14,000, although the demand is probably greater than ever. Jason cites the two main causes as being problems for people selling existing properties to provide the finance, and the types of plots available. While land opportunities have improved a little, it is typically serviced plots on large developments like Graven Hill, rather than individual plots. When people dream of building their own home part of that dream tends to be the location, and living on a large estate, whether a self build or not, isn’t to everybody’s liking.

    Jason sees some kind of balance being self build communities that can give an element of individuality and isolation to people.

    “This has been my twentieth year in the self-build sector and the frustration for me really is that we’ve sold an awful lot of magazines over the years and met hundreds of thousands of people at the shows and spoken to people on the websites, more than you can imagine really. We haven’t actually really made a fundamental difference if we’re honest with ourselves in terms of the number of self-build homes that have been delivered.”

    Research they have carried out with the National Custom and Self Build Association has shown roughly a million people in the UK are ‘actively’ looking to build a home, yet only a few thousand each year go on to do it. Jason suspects the majority of these people have a look on Rightmove and are put off by the out-of-reach prices. For those that do continue, his instinct that what’s stopping them isn’t not being able to find a plot, but that they’re so fixated on a certain type of plot which they’re not going to find at a realistic price, or perhaps they just somehow can’t make the commitment.

    “So, I think if people can be flexible and have that imagination then by and large, with a reasonable budget and obviously that varies from area to area, it shouldn’t be unrealistic for them.”

    There should be an influx of plots on the market soon

    The right to build legislation came about in the UK in 2016, which made it compulsory for local authorities to keep a register of people interested in buying plots of land, and ensure that they had that same number of plots available to purchase within three years. We’re now at that point of those three years having passed so thousands of plots should be coming to the market, but whether they will be plots that people want or in areas they want to live in will be the issue.

    Right to Build

    Self-builders can have an advantage over developers

    In his seminars at the Homebuilding & Renovation Show, Jason explains how there are two types of building plots.

    One type is that which has a ‘For Sale’ board outside and can be found on the market through estate agents and auctions.

    The second is what he describes as the plots that developers go after. These can be found using planning permission data and using Google Maps.

    Opportunities for self-builders arise where there are plots that large and small scale developers can’t quite see how they could build housing. Where they’re looking for a field or flat piece of land to build ten houses, they won’t be so keen on more awkward scraps of land, like old garages.

    “So, the self-builder’s opportunity, I think, is in actually embracing the stuff that makes them different which is the individuality of the design and that agile nature of development.”

    Management of budget is critical and needs flexibility

    Jason has often found that people who work in offices don’t feel that they are well-placed to self build, but actually he thinks they have transferable skills like organisation, project management and making tough decisions about money.

    Having control of finances is crucial and Jason says it helps to think of it in terms of a spreadsheet where if some things are going above original estimates, then reductions might need to be made elsewhere in order to balance it out. He thinks if you can be flexible in terms of these smaller pots of money rather than thinking of it as one big pot, then you can begin to take back control.

    With finance often being the biggest cause of stress on a job, but plenty of other factors beyond your control to add to it, Jason says to some extent it should be part of the main contractor’s role to absorb that stress on your behalf.

    Where costs do go out of control during the construction, it isn’t usually down to the construction but flaws in the design process. A good design process should include the budget, engineering issues and proper site layout.

    “Where I see the failures, it’s usually where the architect at that early stage hasn’t been able to put all those different factors together into a package that the main contractor can then go on to deliver. It’s often just left to the main contractor to work out the gaps.”

    There is always more to learn

    With twenty years in the business, Jason says it’s a constant learning experience and you’re never going to know it all. From talking to other self builders, architects and contractors you will find out other ways of doing things and improving on them.

    In his experience it’s often self-builders that are also engineers who quite often try to find out everything they need to know about house construction on their own, so they can almost second guess the designer and the architect. Jason says this usually ends in tears because they’re never going to know it all!

    In his experience it’s far better to leave all that to the people he is employing to do it. Where it often falls apart is where there is a breakdown in trust between the homeowner and the people that they’re employing.

    When it comes to architects, the ones to avoid are those that struggle to understand the relationship that they’re meant to have with their client. It shouldn’t be a case of dictating ‘this is the design you should have’, or even ‘what do you want me to design for you?’

    “The happy medium is the one that you’re looking for where architects can deliver something that obviously adds their value in. And going back to that thing about trust really, I want architects to be able to come up with ideas that I can’t and solve problems that I can’t. That’s really what you’re paying for.”

    Architects often tend to be specialised in limited styles of design, rather than excelling at all different types of house.

    “It’s wise, I think, to try to pick a design style first and pick almost a process and a target, an objective almost for the project, and then begin to put the team together on the back of that.”

    There needs to be trust within the team

    Jason says there’s also a misconception in the sector that builders are there to be feared or controlled, when actually, the good ones clearly know far more than their clients and should be empowered and just left to get on with it.

    Finding that builder that you can trust in this way is he says part art and part science: the science being the recommendations and background company checks.

    The other part comes down to gut instinct, and thinking about whether they listen to you, are constructive, understand what you’re trying to do with the house, can relate to the family and can appreciate that the budget is tight and that this will be critical to the project. It will need to be someone you think you can trust to be around for the duration of the project and sometimes have difficult discussions with.

    Design flexibility into the house

    Having seen so many self builds, Jason is able to grasp the feel of a home and what does and doesn’t work so well. The right mix can be a space that doesn’t feel too grand or clinical, but instead gives you that ‘wow’ moment each time you walk in, and that is down to good architecture.

    It is important to build flexibility into the design, with space for a growing family so far as is possible. And while the rooms and spaces themselves don’t have to be large, if they can be flexible in their design it allows a family space to spread out and do their own things.

    With the trend for adding extensions to create an open plan living, cooking and eating area, Jason feels they are often designed with daytime and summer in mind, but come winter or the evening they can be lacking that cosy, snug space where actually people just want to curl up in front of the TV.

    Jason cites a number of reasons why people are staying in their houses for longer: houses are more expensive, stamp duty makes it very costly to move, flexibility in working arrangements means people don’t have to move for work as much. And while people tend to stay in their homes for longer, their needs change depending on children growing up, moving away etc, so that flexibility again is so important with being able to adapt to the occupants, rather than moving out.

    It isn’t affordable enough for younger generations

    A notable change in the types of people attending the home shows is that the self build community is getting older and greyer. Nowadays self build can take more money to do than it used to, with greater demand for land and resulting prices escalating, and the cost of materials increasing.

    Jason worries that the opportunities for self build are not as available now to people in their twenties and thirties, and this is something that he would like to see change. But that will take changes in financial offerings, planning law and land availability.

    His advice to them would be to be realistic and flexible in terms of area and the type of plot to go for. He warns against holding out for the perfect plot on the edge of a village with panoramic views, and suggests instead considering looking at the less attractive plots. He says as well as ugly duckling houses, there are ugly duckling plots which, once landscaped and with a well designed house on top, can really add value.

    Jason suggests starting out in self build like starting on the property ladder, where you start small, do it two or three times and work your way up to building the house of your dreams. And with labour accounting for roughly half the costs on the build, he says you can save thousands of pounds by doing things like the tiling, kitchen fitting, decorating and landscaping yourself.

    “One of the great unwritten things about self-building and renovating as well is that you never seem to quite get that day where you sit back and you say, ‘I’ve done it’ and you can sit back and enjoy it.

    “You’ve just got to enjoy it as it goes through and take those little marks because there’s always going to be the garden to do; there’s always going to be that bit of the house that you didn’t quite finish off properly. I think for people who are interested in housing like we are, and there are thousands of people like us, I think, you have to just realise that that’s part of the process and part of the pleasure.”

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine

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  • HPH267 : Self build tips, eco design and the climate emergency – with Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs

    HPH267 : Self build tips, eco design and the climate emergency – with Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs

    Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs shares practical advice on how to approach an ecological build, and comments on how architecture needs to change to address the climate emergency.

    Interview with Kevin McCloud

    Kevin McCloud has been synonymous with self build for the last 20 years. No doubt anyone planning their own project has had conversations with friends, family and colleagues about Grand Designs, as the programme has inspired a generation of people to dream about building their own home and, for some of those, to make it a reality. As well as being integral to the success of the TV show, Kevin is also the founder of HAB custom build houses.

    Grand Designs has diversified

    The busiest period of filming for Grand Designs is between May and October when Kevin can be filming up to fifteen hours a day, for three days a week. Because it’s impossible to know whether a project is going to take several months or several years they’re never quite sure what is going to end up in each series.

    Kevin attributes the show’s longevity to being able to find interesting stories that they haven’t covered before, whether that might be about a Passivhaus construction, a new technology or building for a disability.

    The Grand Designs brand has expanded to include ‘Grand Designs: House of the Year‘ in association with RIBA, and in 2019 also brought us ‘Grand Designs: The Street‘. This followed a number of self build projects taking place on a single street on the Graven Hill development in Bicester, with plans to return and film another series.

    Kevin says one of the most significant films he made was in series one, which was a community housing project in Brighton called The Hedgehog Housing Co-op, that used a Walter Segal construction method. In the future he would be keen to follow another community self build co-housing scheme, but says that they’re sadly very hard to find.

    There have been some stand-out eco projects

    Some of Kevin’s favourite projects have been ones with a focus on sustainability. One he particularly enjoyed was Ben Law, who in 2003 built his house out of his own coppiced wood. He describes it as being a beautiful story where nothing went wrong to create a fabulously beautiful house.

    “It was a film in which the word sustainability was mentioned once by Ben and I thought that was great. It elegantly told the story without hammering it on people’s heads.”

    Copyright ben-law.co.uk

    Another memorable one was the Lammas Project, which followed a couple building in Wales. He says it was a beautiful film about super low-impact living that was as much about the lifestyle as it was about the architecture.

    “It’s rather like ecological cars. They don’t exist. There’s no such thing as an ecological car. It doesn’t matter whether it’s full of batteries or it runs on dog poo. The point is, it’s all about our consumption and use of vehicles that determines whether their use has an impact on the planet. That’s where fundamentally the largest amount of environmental impact happens, in use.

    “And it’s the same with dwellings. So, you can build yourself an eco-house but if you continue to drive fifty miles to work every day and continue to live an exorbitant lifestyle, it doesn’t really achieve very much.”

    Being asthmatic himself, Kevin had a keen interest in Elinor Olisa’s healthy home that featured in the last series. With two children that suffered from life-threatening allergies, Elinor researched every product coming into the home to check for VOC levels and potential triggers. She has worked with the University of York to monitor the environmental performance and the results have been staggering.

    “A fabric first approach is glorious”

    A theme of the recent series and also in his own work, is a leaning towards a fabric first method of building, rather than bolting things on to make them seem more sustainable. Invariably the latter is an expensive and unnecessary way of working, but choosing the right materials and using them in an intelligent way is a far better approach.

    “It’s like the argument about the Americans and the Russians in their Space Race. The Americans spent tens of thousands of pounds developing a ballpoint pen that would write upside down in space, and the Russians used pencils. I don’t think that’s true but I just love the story.”

    A sense of responsibility

    Kevin believes the responsibility as architects and builders should be to build buildings which are super-efficient in terms of how they use energy and their resources, but they should also ‘deliver a quality of life that makes their arguments utterly compelling.’

    Achieving this takes a combination of good design where homes cost very little to run, where the experience of being in the buildings is uplifting and where people want to stay and build a community.

    “It’s the idea of how you use the spaces in between buildings to create social sustainability which has in itself a collective reduction in demand on the planet’s resources. In other words, if you share an allotment and you grow your own food; if you join a car club because you know your neighbours and you want to do it; if between you, you buy a bicycle for the street; or buy one trampoline for five households for the kids; or one shed; or one lawnmower between five homes; what you’re doing is actually, you’re sharing cost, you’re saving yourselves loads of money, and you’re also saving resources and making your collective imprint on the planet lighter.”

    People often think of self build as a collection of ideas at the start

    These ideas might be around what sort of bathrooms, kitchens, taps, sofas, lights etc that people like, and they assemble the home based on aspects which are more associated with the interior design than the architecture.

    Kevin sees architecture as being:

    “a process of design which is very good at resolving all kinds of issues to do with how buildings, places respond to where they are, to site, to the environment, to their location, to the passage of the sun, to how they function in engineering terms, but also how they provide uplifting and exciting spaces for their occupants that lift the spirits.”

    For him architecture is about creating a connection with the outdoors, while also problem solving things like storage space, and a lot less about the taps!

    Grand Designs ‘The Street’ (copyright gravenhill.co.uk)
    Grand Designs ‘The Street’ (copyright gravenhill.co.uk)

    Enable more people to self build, as it can be truly empowering

    Kevin says that it’s pretty much established that the middle classes can go out and build for themselves, and he would like those opportunities open to more people. He believes that through community you get a far greater sense of attachment to a place and an accompanying sense of empowerment from building your own home. It’s a combination that could be life-changing for many people.

    To do this, self build needs to be:

    • More widespread
    • Facilitated by local authorities
    • Have dedicated sites, with communities of self-builders working together
    • Truly affordable
    • Have more co-housing community schemes
    • Have housing associations working with groups of their residents as clients to build accommodation

    Kevin would like to see people being empowered in as many ways as possible, and yet the system in the UK is set up to favour the large developers controlling the market. While he wouldn’t suggest a future entirely dominated by self build or community self build, he would like to see a diversity of offerings which would create a healthier market.

    Large numbers of people wanting to build together within a community can put pressure on the authorities to deal with their land assets in a different way. There is even a question of whether land in public ownership should have a financial value attached to it, because of the net social capital that can be created by building together, and which is very evident in schemes across Europe. And if that community can be further enhanced with car share, improved cycle routes and better public transport and sharing generally, then that social capital has been increased even more.

    Development is a dysfunctional industry

    In considering what it would take to solve the housing crisis in the UK, Kevin says he would need to be the Prime Minister as the industry is so dysfunctional!

    “I would empower small and medium enterprises; I would mitigate against the large housebuilders; I would mandate every single local authority to allocate land. I’d use the Right to Build Act in fact.

    “The trouble is, everything I’m describing has already been tried. And that’s the difficulty. It’s not one problem. We have a crisis in numbers; we have a crisis of quality; we have a crisis in affordability; we have a crisis in planning. We have only half of the number of planners that we need. And we don’t have within central government a statement of faith. And what I would personally like to see, if I could do one thing, I would announce a national statement of faith in social housing.

    “We need to move back to a world where we integrate, where tenure is blind, where you can’t tell who owns and who rents, where housing is considered a basic human right, and we need to create the mechanisms to make that affordable not just to own but to rent, to share, and to occupy by whatever means. There are plenty of tenure models around the world which work.

    “So, what we have is a binary system in the UK which is hilariously out-of-date and a market delivery mechanism which is dysfunctional and broken. So, we’ve got lots to mend, lots to do, but by just saying, ‘we believe in council housing’ or ‘we believe in providing high quality housing for all and we will do everything we can to achieve that’ would be a wonderful thing.”

    Grand Designs Live

    The Grand Designs Live exhibitions take place in the UK twice a year. Kevin is proud that they offer tangible opportunities for people to touch and feel products and experience their quality. As part of the exhibition there is also an exchange of ideas where you can get help and advice from experts.

    Milk bottle house at Grand Designs Live

    With his passion for innovation, Kevin is excited by the new technology being showcased, with exhibitors now selling products on their stands that only a couple of years ago were in the ‘Green Heroes’ section.

    Find out more

    Catch up with previous episodes of Grand Designs

    Visit the websites of:

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  • HPH223 : What is it like to self build at Graven Hill? – with Dean Scott

    HPH223 : What is it like to self build at Graven Hill? – with Dean Scott

    Dean Scott takes Ben on a tour of the Graven Hill development, and of his own energy-efficient self build.

     

    Interview with Dean Scott

    When we last spoke with Dean, he and Hannah had expressed an interest in a plot at Graven Hill and were making preparations to push ahead with the purchase. That was nearly two years ago and Ben recently returned to find out how much progress they have made and, particularly, what has been unique about building at the Graven Hill development.

     

    As well as new homes on site, the infrastructure is changing too

    With all the construction and infrastructure work going on, some roads are being closed off while others are being opened up. This can make following directions quite challenging (as Ben discovers)!

     

    Proximity to other houses under construction can influence schedules

    Some houses are being built with a metre distance of neighbouring plots. So with just a two metre gap between buildings, and scaffolding for each being a metre wide, there can be a problem with sequencing.

    Their direct neighbours had their scaffolding up before Dean and Hannah were ready, which meant that they couldn’t dig their service trenches down the side of the house, so this has had to be put on hold.

    With the scaffolding needing to be tied together, they’ve had to use the same lift heights as their neighbour, as will the neighbours that follow on the other side.

    With three or four different scaffolding companies being used and joining onto each other, Dean thinks it probably would have made more sense to have used a single one. He is unsure about whether there might be issues when they start being taken down, particularly if one neighbour is ready before the other.

     

    Planning requirements might depend on what your neighbours are doing

    “I think there are some planning requirements we have to go through, but because everyone’s developing at different rates, it sort of depends on what your neighbours do.”

    Dean and Hannah submitted their designs before their neighbours did, so there were no planning restrictions because of their house. This means they haven’t had to use frosted glass on some windows where otherwise they might have needed to.

     

    The house follows a cube design

    Dean has taken 3 months off work to concentrate on the build and be on site as much as possible. Two months in, and construction work has so far brought about an almost weather-tight shell, with the Cross Laminated Timber frame, cladding, windows, doors and roof installed.

    With the plot being eight metres wide, and the building spread over three storeys to get the floor area they wanted, Gresford Architects came up with the concept of a cube design for the house. The windows are all square and Dean is currently working on the detail of the front door, to try and follow the square theme around the rectangular frame. The cube shape also allows for two areas of double height space, for the sense of drama.

    The windows they are using are from the Idealcombi Futura+ triple glazed range, and open inwards. They are tilt and turn, so Dean is hoping they won’t be awkward and get knocked. Despite them being large he has found the mechanisms to work efficiently. They shouldn’t have any overheating in the house, but to be sure, they are installing external roller blinds on the windows.

     

    Do what’s needed to move in, then treat it as a long-term project

    Dean and Hannah are looking to move in as soon as they can. They are currently renting a home so are keen to divert those funds into this house. Some of the decoration may have to wait, but the big things that still need doing for Building Control will be flooring on the upper floors, fire doors, fire treatment on the inside of the walls, window reveals, service runs, electrics, MVHR, gas boiler etc.

    Dean is unsure how he will define ‘finished’ on this project but expect they will move in before all the decoration work has been completed. They may for example get the family bathroom done, but leave the en-suite until later.

    This does have to be balanced against the VAT reclaim. What they don’t want to do is move in and then buy lots of things they’re unable to reclaim the VAT on.

    “I think I’m definitely prepared to relax what I feel is a finished state, just to be able to live here and just to get on with life again.”

     

    They under-budgeted, rather than over-spent

    Dean and Hannah think they are probably around 8-10% over their budget, or as they prefer to think of it, they under-budgeted by 8-10%. They haven’t spent more on luxury items, it’s just been the cost of delivering what was planned.

    “I think ultimately what it means on the budget is that gone are the dreams of any sorts of luxuries, essentially. It’s just barebones basics to get in and then we’ll develop it over the next two, three years or whatever it takes. But as long as we get in and it’s comfortable, which I’m sure it will be, then we can just get on as a family and we can take it on from there.”

    It does mean they may have to take on more of the work themselves and be cautious with remaining quotes. A trickier issue for them currently is cash flow.

    They have been using Ecology Building Society for their mortgage and found them to be brilliant. They have had three revaluations as they have gone along, to then be able to have funds released. And on occasions when they have been caught out by an invoice, they have emailed asking for another release of funds and the money has been in their bank account later that day.

    “So, we’ve got value still to release, which is good. That money is there. And that’s the good thing. We have built the value. We’ve not got ahead of ourselves. So, the building is worth what we’ve spent on it, if you like, which is good news.”

     

    Despite the hard work and stress, he hasn’t fallen out of love with the house

    Dean is hesitant to say that he has actively enjoyed the self build process, but he does get joy from entering the house and being in the spaces they have created. He says it feels more like he’s working on someone else’s house, and that it doesn’t yet really feel like it’s theirs. But as contractors finish up and they’re able to start tidying up inside, it’s starting to feel more like a home.

     

    Images of the Graven Hill Development

    One of the things that stands out at the Graven Hill Development, is the diversity of houses being built. These images show some of the self build, custom build and affordable housing being built in the first phase on the site.

     

    UK Passivhaus Awards 2018

    The shortlist has recently been announced for the 2018 UK Passivhaus Awards. Among those listed are Ruth Butler’s Hampshire Passivhaus.

    Read Lloyd Alter’s take on the nominees.

     

    Talkselfbuild.com

    In the last few days we have launched our new Facebook page, www.talkselfbuild.com. This group is a place to discuss the challenges you might be facing, get fresh input on your ideas, share resources and inspire each other through what can be a roller-coaster ride. Although it’s free it is a closed group so please do take a look and join.

    For those that would like access to more resources, video case studies, step-by-step modules, and monthly progress calls, then join our community at The Hub. In fact, Dean Scott was our first member!

     

    Find out more

    Check out Dean and Hannah’s blog

    Follow Dean and Hannah on Twitter

    Find out more about Graven Hill

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Dean Scott.

     

    Please connect with me

  • 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.

     

    Please connect with me

  • HPH148 : How do you know you’re properly prepared for a self build? – with Dean Scott

    HPH148 : How do you know you’re properly prepared for a self build? – with Dean Scott

    Dean Scott explains the preparations that have been involved in his self build project.

     

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    Interview with Dean Scott

    Dean Scott and his wife Hannah are both engineers with an interest in watching self build TV shows, so it is almost a logical step that they would want to build their own house! They have never bought a house together as they haven’t been able to find somewhere that they were both really excited about, so the opportunity available at the Graven Hill development means they are on the verge of turning their self build dream into a reality.

     

    Finance has been the first consideration

    Unlike Grand Designs where self builders always seem to have an extra pot of money to dip into, Dean stresses that he and Hannah have a finite budget with no reserves to fall back on. For that reason finance has always been the starting point of the process for them, judging whether it was something they could realistically afford to do.

    Dean explains the difficulty of putting a budget together when going round in circles in a self builder’s loop: What sort of house do you want to build? That depends on how you’re going to build it. That depends on how much you’re going to spend. That depends on what sort of house you want. That depends on where you’re going to build it.

    It was a little more straightforward for Dean and Hannah. Because they’re renting they don’t have any assets to consider so are relying on their cash savings. After discussions with a BuildStore mortgage broker, looking at savings, earnings and outgoings, they were able to build a picture of the total pot of money they would have available, which thankfully aligned with the expected costs for the size of the house they hope to build.

     

    Take time to understand the cash flow process

    Understanding the process of an arrears based mortgage was an eye opener for Dean, as you need to allow for the fact that you’ve got to build to the next stage before the funds are released to you. Dean says that the bulk of his work has been looking at how to manage the cash flow, when they’ll be needing to buy the plot, the foundations, fees and timber frame, before having funds released.

    “Don’t just think that because you’ve got a lump of cash and you can borrow a certain amount of money and therefore you’re fine. You need the money at the right time.”

     

    Create a mood board on Pinterest for ideas

    As well as being valuable for gaining inspiration, Dean explains that it has been a useful way for he and Hannah to share information and ideas together. Thankfully they have both had similar ideas of what they like!

    They also recommend using Google Docs and setting up a project folder on something like Google Drive as a way of sharing documents and spreadsheets to collaborate effectively together.

     

    The Graven Hill development is an attractive proposition with affordable plots

    With most of the land in the Oxfordshire region where they live being way out of their price range, they were excited that the Graven Hill development was so close and seems to be offering plots within an affordable range for them.

    They have expressed an interest in a particular plot and are due to meet with the sales team this week with the hope of being able to reserve it.

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    Part of the requirements are that you need to already have a house concept and a realistic budget in place. Although it has taken a few months to have those in order, the benefit of Graven Hill is that they won’t need to worry about ground conditions, services and planning permission, which would be potential headaches in a typical self build.

    Dean is excited about the prospect of being involved in the scheme. For him, it’s not just about building their own house, but potentially building a community. He’s looking forward to sharing the highs and lows of self building with other people in the same position, and is particularly excited to see the variation in house styles that will be produced.

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    The house is likely to be a Passivhaus cube shape for efficiency

    Being engineers, they are interested in efficiency where possible so a Passivhaus design makes perfect sense to them. Their brief to their architect, Tom Gresford, was to maximise the living space while keeping it as efficient as possible from a thermal point of view. The concept he has proposed is a cube, with the square elements following through the design in terms of the windows and some of the room layouts.

    Because they don’t want to spend too much money in fees before they even have their plot confirmed, they have only carried out basic costings to give them some ballpark figures. Their budget for the build is around £180,000 and based on the intended size of the house and a cost of approximately £1,400/£1,500m² they expect to be slightly over that amount. For that reason when it comes to a more detailed breakdown they are going to have to be extremely careful to bring it back in line.

     

    * Since recording this interview, Dean and Hannah have had a meeting with the Graven Hill Sales Team and paid a deposit to reserve their chosen plot. Congratulations to them and we look forward to seeing how their plans progress!

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    Find out more

    Check out Dean and Hannah’s blog

    Follow Dean and Hannah on Twitter

    Join their Facebook group for people looking to self build at Graven Hill

     

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Dean Scott.

     

    The Hub update

    We have added some new content into The Hub, with our second case study – Buckinghamshire Passivhaus. In this first video we look at the plot and find out about the plans. The clients orginally wanted to do a retrofit but it turned out not to be so straightforward. Their architect, Janet Cotterill, worked out two different schemes; tackling the retrofit and then looking at a new build option. They have opted for the new build, with particularly being able to claim the 20% VAT back being a big swaying factor.

     

    Please connect with me

  • 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.

    Avenette 150903

     

    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