Here is an article on the winner of Grand Designs House of the year. We have followed this project with great interest as the build comprises of products we regularly use of SIPS, Timber and Cladding.

“The owner wanted to live and work in the house, and to have big views of the landscape; she was also keen that the house could run autonomously for part of the year, with minimal energy use.

The architect’s solution was an energy-efficient modular design of three interconnected, pitched-roofed, highly insulated buildings; each one can be closed off and left unheated without affecting the others that are still in use.

The house is miles from the nearest road so the structural insulated panelled (SIP) walls were prefabricated to keep transport costs to a minimum. The windows are triple glazed, and the roof is integrated with a combined solar, thermal and PV panel system that is connected to a battery array and a thermal store. With a wood-fired stove-boiler and generator as additional heat systems, and an MVHR system to keep the internal air fresh, the house is comfortable all year round.

Outside, the house is clad with vertically hung larch boards that were charred to give them a darker tone, and with Scottish stone, while the flat roof that links the three buildings is seeded with varieties of the plants that can be found growing on the rocks along the nearby shoreline”.