“This is an eco home of wood frame, cob wood and recycled windows, with a straw insulated turf roof, solar power, compost toilet and reed beds for grey water,” he says. “We designed and built it over the winter of 1997 and 1998.” But the planners didn’t like it, especially as he didn’t have planning permission. It worried them. Was it temporary or permanent? Were they travellers or settlers? Tony applied for retrospective planning permission but it was turned down. There followed a ten-year legal battle and That Roundhouse became a cause célèbre as Tony agreed to demolish it over Easter 2004. There was public outcry and the demolition was postponed.
Since then, as fears of global warming and interest in sustainability have grown, the thinking about these kinds of buildings has changed. In 2006, Tony reapplied to Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, arguing that it complied with a need for new low-impact development. It was turned down again but he joined forces with a friend who had built a roundhouse across the field. They finally persuaded the planning committee to grant temporary permission.
More recently, other communities have sprung up, building their own eco homes. And from the Orkneys to Somerset, many people have experimented with straw-bale houses. Kevin McCloud has championed a self-build by woodman Ben Law made using similar techniques, naming it the favourite of all his Grand Designs. The Sustainability Centre near Petersfield in Hampshire promotes the light-footprint lifestyle and forest school skills to thousands of adults and children each year.
That Roundhouse may have taken 1,500 man hours to build but it cost only £3,000. For Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine, it suggests that alternative thinking might help the current housing crisis. “This kind of house is almost biodegradable,” she says, “so it fits the need for low-impact development and for young families to have somewhere affordable to live. House building is all about architects and big builders, but historically villages built for their own villagers.
“The other point is that low-impact dwellings which use local materials can also be energy efficient, using the best woodburners, solar thermal and photovoltaics. This handbook has been updated and has evolved as techniques have improved.”
(source link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/greenproperty/10983090/Living-like-Bilbo-Baggins-life-in-an-eco-friendly-hobbit-house.html)
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Carefully thought through: the inside of the roundhouse