Hasta La Ideas

Informed by the greenhouses that once occupied the site, local architecture studio Hayhurst and Co added bamboo planting behind polycarbonate screens to the facade of a family home in London.

Named Green House, Hayhurst and Co created the home as an example of low-cost, low-energy housing, with a cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure and repurposed materials used for cladding and flooring.

“The design for Green House draws on the natural history and verdant character of the site, providing a contemporary and low-energy reimagining of a domestic-scale greenhouse – a family home that blurs the boundaries between inside and outside spaces and creates a bold re-greening of a once unloved site,” studio director Jonathan Nicholls told Dezeen.

“Green House provides a prototype for an affordable and sustainable family home that could be replicated on other constrained urban sites or on a larger scale as terrace dwellings.”

Located between two brick houses built in the 2000s, Green House was built on an unused site in Tottenham’s Clyde Circus conservation area that formerly accommodated orchards, greenhouses and market gardens.

According to Hayhurst and Co, the home is fossil fuel-free, with an air-source heat pump providing its heating and solar panels on the roof generating electricity.

An atrium at the centre of the home lets natural light into the interior and naturally cools the house by stack ventilation.

The home’s south-facing front elevation is clad in polycarbonate screens with bamboo planted behind, referencing the greenhouses that once stood on the site and filtering natural light into the home.

“The plants and screens softly filter the daylight whilst maintaining privacy and provide solar shading on hot summer days,” said Nicholls.

Repurposed agricultural roofing sheets clad the rear elevation, which backs onto a garden. Hayhurst and Co also used reclaimed concrete breeze blocks for outdoor paving and recycled cork rubber on the internal floors to keep within a budget of £550,000.

Communal spaces on the ground floor are open-plan, with the living room at the front of the home, the dining room under the central atrium, and the kitchen at the rear opening onto the back garden.

“The rooms in the house are arranged so that all spaces have views out to greenery,” said Nicholls. “Long views are created through the house, from the north to south garden and through the planted facade.”

An acoustic curtain wrapping the atrium can be drawn to separate the dining area from the kitchen and living room on either side.

A CLT structure was chosen for its negative carbon footprint and left exposed to add warmth and texture to the interior, while the home’s simple cuboid form was designed for cost and energy efficiency.

“The material palette of the house was kept to a minimum, with a carbon-sequestering CLT superstructure and all primary structures exposed throughout, avoiding any additional carbon-heavy and costly plasterboard linings or paint finishes,” said Nicholls.

“The rational block form of the house was chosen for its material and constructional efficiencies, as well as for providing the most efficient form factor possible to minimise heat loss, energy use, and costs.”

Other projects completed by Hayhurst and Co include a London flat extension clad in charred timber and a primary school with landscaped play spaces enclosed by a white aluminium mesh screen.

The photography is by Kilian O’Sullivan.

Project credits:

Client: Tom Van Schelven
Architect: Hayhurst and Co
Structures: Iain Wright Associates
M&E energy consultants: Mesh Energy
CLT contractor: Eurban
Contractor: Rebuild London

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