Past Projects
The Bettablok System
Barrington Cambridgeshire
The first structural design and use of a new innovative earth block system known as Bettablok. This earth block is interlocking and can be mechanically laid in half the time taken to build a conventional block wall. Blocks walls were designed to Euro Code 6 modified to allow for the use of the Earth/lime composition blocks.
Salthouse, Norfolk.
Design of an earth sheltered house set into the sloping land that overlooks the salt marshes
Mattishall, Norfolk.
The construction of a new house using lime mortar, cellulose insulation made from waste newspaper, rainwater recovery system used to flush toilets and for clothes washing, the use of natural materials, passive stack ventilation, high performance coupled windows containing integral Venetian blinds, a thermal store for heating. The house won the £5000 first prize in the Norwich and Peterborough building society award for sustainable housing in 2000.
Design of new earth block house at Beeston Norfolk. The challenge was to see if a new two-storey earth block house could achieve approval under the Building Regulations thereby demonstrating compliance with all aspects of the structural, and energy requirements for a new house.
The house was used as a case study in research carried out at Plymouth University following tests on the flexural and compressive strength of the blocks.
Extension to Saint
Andrews parish church Holt.
St Andrews is a twelfth century church, with flint walls, limestone buttresses, quoins and dressings under a leaded roof. The challenge was to select a palette of materials, sympathetic to the fabric of the church but in a style that would reflect the twenty-first-century in terms of its style, use and current concerns for the environment.
The design was runner-up in the Graham Allen Award presented by North Norfolk District Council.
