Hetreed Ross are environmental architects skilled in achieving difficult consents for residential, community, commercial and education projects with new, existing and historic buildings; using low energy design, sustainable construction and appropriately simple services, we produce delightful buildings to exceed clients’ expectations and make the best of these unique opportunities to improve both life and planet. RIBA Chartered, Passivhaus Designers, AECB and Green Register members.
Bath
Bath and NE Somerset
BA1 7DE
United Kingdom
19th C Paulton Foundry has bats, badgers, otters, grass snakes and slow worms. Planning was challenging but we obtained permission for a large sustainable family home, studio, workshop, garage, and independent holiday accommodation.
The house was rebuilt from Foundry cottages, to Passivhaus principles but keeps a Victorian north façade; the south wall was rebuilt with triple glazing shaded by vines. Decks on 3 sides of this upside-down house enhance views, garden connections, and link the studio. Stone ground and first floors are underfloor heated via a thermal store from solar and wood fuel. Timber floors – site-felled sycamore and ash – have skirting heating – seldom needed. Mains water is supplemented by a rain/spring-fed cistern.
The East Foundry was converted into an Art Studio. Its steel portal frame carries larch cladding over straw-bale walls, lime-rendered internally. The 12kWp PVs to the south pitch provide power for zero carbon operation of the site.
A rare example of thorough eco-refurb to a Listed Building. Despite 17th C origins, surviving historic roof timbers and plasterwork, the house had a variety of window replacements, concrete floors, partly modern roof tiling and cement rendered external walls: when new owners stripped the interior for ‘modernisation’, the alarm was raised and the house spot-Listed. New owners keen on historic character as well as on environmental upgrade allowed us to negotiate with the Listed Building Officer towards a very positive compromise: the cement render replaced by cork slab EWI, lime rendered; concrete tiles to south pitch replaced by PV array serving heat pumps and underfloor heating; historic roof structures internally exposed and over-boarded with high performance insulation under reinstated clay tiles; the few surviving historic windows repaired and to be secondarily double-glazed; new windows built to match them will be double glazed; extract ventilation is provided by localised MVHR.
Situated in Bath’s World Heritage Site, this new sustainable home had to meet the challenges of a tight urban site. With split levels and a semi sunken living room, the property nestles at the end of our client’s garden lower in the landscape than its neighbours. Overlooking and privacy were critical for the planners, so height, orientation and window locations were vital.
Contemporary glazing and timber cladding address the southerly garden with Bath stone walls facing the neighbours. Planning constraints limited potential for a certified Passivhaus build so AECB Building Standard has been used for energy targets, designing the thermal envelope as a highly insulated timber frame construction with PVs & air source heat pump providing the primary energy sources, good airtightness and an MVHR system. Bat roosts in the timber cladding and green roofs help maintain biodiversity on a small site. Site preparation is due to start in spring 2020, with a completion date planned for 2021.