Eco House

Bluepencil Designs have been commissioned to design another Eco house!

Following the success of their last ‘Eco House’, Bluepencil Designs is now working on a new project, this time on the Essex/Suffolk border.  Once again the site is at the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Bluepencil Designs particularly enjoy projects with challenging planning issues. This time they have the benefit of working with Andrew Martin and his team of first class planning consultants.

The  concept behind the design is to create a building that ‘touches the ground lightly’. It will be a  house with a green roof so that viewed from above it leaves no footprint. Inspiration for the design has come from studies of historic turf roofed houses which appear to  become part of the landscape over the years.

For hundreds of years houses in Norway have been covered with turf and they come in different varieties. Some are bright green and almost velvety. Others are golden and look like they’re growing wheat or oats. A number of turf roofs have flowers mixed in with the grass, and a few have small trees. During the Viking and Middle Ages most houses had turf roofs. In rural areas they were almost universal until the beginning of the 18th century.  Turf roofs have begun to reappear as an alternative to modern materials and ‘green roofs’  (anything from grass to sedum) have become increasingly poplar in Eco House design in the UK.

‘This is another very exciting opportunity for us. Our intention is to design a beautiful new home through a combination of respect for the landscape with cutting edge modern technologies, giving our clients exactly what they wish for”