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Intro to the design and living space
This main section of the website explains in detail the design/systems/ materials qualities that make the Brittany Groundhouse a natural building choice. A lot of people provided valuable input to the house, through design, planning, construction and fixtures and a lot of people have approached us for information.The information and links here should go some way to explaining the design and crediting inputs to the project.
To see the Brittany Groundhouse you can watch our 3 minute clip from the 2009 Grand Designs series on the uk’s Channel 4 here. You can also watch a clip from France 5 on national french TV at the bottom of this page.
The presenter, Kevin McCloud, placed it in his top five Grand Designs over 10 years of the programme (Sunday Times, 25.1.09).
Our DESIGN AIMS, which are expanded in separate sections:
- zero carbon producing more electricity than consumed
- easily heated and cooled using the sun and thermal mass. Solar hot water gain is maximised
- harvests all water needed for washing and recycles grey water for food growing
- built from local, natural, traditional and salvaged materials as well as state of the art new products with recycled content and low ecological impact
LAYOUT AND LIVING SPACE
Each room has a complete opening trifold front face onto the outside terrace. Set in it’s own 1.5 acres of organic garden, surrounded by oaks, but open to the south, the Groundhouse benefits from all rooms being light and warm year round. Comfort and style go hand in hand with the salvage designer kitchen and luxury bath and shower. Ecotechnologies and building design deliver solar power, solar hot water, rainwater for washing, and a steady comfortable interior temperature. Two efficient lean burn woodburners provide extra warmth and ambience when necessary. The house is easy and very economical to run and live in.
The heart of the house is the open plan lounge and kitchen, the fire room, from where the roundroom, as well as the 3 bedrooms can be directly accessed. The roundroom is a stunning and versatile space, over 6 metres across with vaulted ceiling rising up to a wooden hub that opens to the sky. It provides studio space for use as an office, workshop space, additional master bedroom or living room.
The designer kitchen combines modern efficiency with salvaged oak work surfaces and is equipped with a stainless steel cooker, double butlers sink and designer eco lighting. The kitchen is 7m by 5m and looks out over the reedbeds and gardens. The hwam woodstove provides a beautiful focal point and ambience to the open plan room, further enhanced by the views over the gardens.
The bathroom combines natural luxury with swedish dry toilet technology. It has rounded walls and polished fossil rich limestone floors. A large luxury stone resin bath supplied by is complemented by a dual shower. The basin is carved from a solid piece of granite and is seated on sea salvaged hardwoods and limestone. The state of the art swedish dry toilet ensures the house creates no waste.
Each of the three bedrooms are finished in a lime cob plaster, with poured earth cement floors. The doorways are decorated with coloured glass inlays and all bedrooms fully open to the limestone terrace. We sourced all bedroom furnishings on the basis of either salvage or sustainability including the rugs and beds.
