The house is conceived as a highly flexible long life loose fit structure. By locating the stairwell and service core in the centre of the plan a series of spaces of equal size are created on three floors. This non-hierarchical disposition of space reflects modern family or shared house life while accommodating communal activity on the first floor, providing all household members a good size space of their own. This is key to the future-proofing and adaptability of the house.

Live/work is accommodated with a ground floor studio space that visitors can reach without intrusion in the private upper floors of the house. This space could also function as a bedroom for an infirm relative, with the opportunity to convert the adjacent utility space to a shower room and space for a lift to the main living space on the first floor.

The houses satisfy all 16 Lifetime Homes requirements.

Townscape

The architects have adopted the restraint and sophisticated elegance characteristic of eighteenth century terraced townhouses, playing down the importance of individual houses to the benefit of the whole terrace. At the same time the frontage of the house honestly expresses the less hierarchical disposition of modern flexible internal space.

The entrance to the house opens off a generous porch, which is warm, inviting, timber lined and minimally detailed to conceal the garage door. The garage has been set back into the footprint to minimise the potentially deadening effect on the street. Entrances are paired to encourage neighbourliness, and similarly the stairs to the private rear gardens are paired with the alternate neighbour.

Lifetime Homes requires flush entrances and thus the entrance level and public realm are at the same level. A semi-public zone between shared surface roadway and houses is achieved by the protection afforded by an avenue of fruit trees, rain garden areas and brick paving that extends under the porch and bin store. The fruit trees are a key part of the design of the streetscape, being crucial to reduce summer-time solar gain to the first floor living space, increase privacy between houses and absorb noise in the street.

The house has a private garden to the rear directly accessible from the first floor living space.

Environmental performance

The house will achieve the Code for Sustainable Homes level 5.

The proposal takes full advantage of one particular micro-renewable energy source. In all, 20sq m of thin cell photovoltaic (PV) wall panels are incorporated on the elevation with the most advantageous orientation, which can produce up to 2.5 kW. Similarly the most advantageous roof slope will be formed in PV roof slates which, with an area of 35sq m, produces up to a further 3.5 kW depending on orientation. With this amount of PV generated electricity and low heat losses from the airtight and well insulated building fabric, the house requires only a small electric boiler to heat a water based underfloor heating system and hot water cylinder.

The stairwell runs through the house and roofspace to a roof lantern. The lantern channels light into the centre of the floor plan via the stairwell. Automatic vents in the lantern can be opened to encourage stack ventilation of the house via the stairwell in warm still weather.

A service strategy using a central service core runs vertically at the back of the stairwell to the roofspace, where an extract fan and heat recovery unit, an electric boiler and hot water cylinder are located. The ventilation extract and soil vent pipes discharge from this core via a 'chimney' integral to the lantern.

Rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling will be combined to a single tank located under the rear garden. The grey water from showers and baths will be pre-treated via a bio-digester tank before entering the main tank.

Paved areas to the front of the townhouses will comprise permeable open joint brick, and wetland planted rain garden areas are included to collect remaining surface water.

Construction system and innovative materials

The house is formed from two Futureform pre-fabricated units stacked to four storeys. The framed construction system will be used to advantage to achieve insulation thicknesses of 300mm using blown paper to completely fill the cavity and provide exceptional u-values and airtightness to the external walls.

Depending on orientation of the street or square the elevation with greatest PV generation will have infill cladding in thin film PV panels. In some street orientations these panels will be on the front façade, and in other situations they will be located on the rear façade. The PV panels have a smooth glass finish. On the other elevation a recycled glass cladding with a hammered stone-like finish is proposed. Thus in a typical street both finishes would be apparent.

The entrance porch is lined in a Thermowood joinery which is a material formed from softwood heat treated to give it the exceptional durability and minimum maintenance characteristics of the best hardwoods.

One slope of the roof is formed entirely of lapping solar PV slates.

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