Social housing tenants in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles could soon be assembling flat-pack eco-homes under a deal between a housing association and the architect of the BedZED housing estate in Sutton.

Cornwall Rural Housing Association is in advanced discussions with Bill Dunster to buy self-assembly kits for rural housing.

Cornwall Rural owns 173 rural properties, most of which do not have access to mains gas supplies, and hopes to develop a series of easy-to-build and cheap-to-heat homes.

It received a Housing Corporation innovation and good practice grant of 拢45,000 last September to develop affordable, low-energy, sustainable homes that could be replicated on other rural sites.

The kits feature mini-turbines and solar panels intended to store solar energy in the winter and keep the occupants cool in the summer.

The house design, known as RuralZED, won a competition run by the Cornwall Sustainable 星空传媒 Trust to design an environment-friendly house. Eight to 10 of the units would be built in any one village.

Cornwall Rural director Peter Moore said: 鈥淲e are keen to develop very low consumption energy homes that result in low bills and complement existing villages and naturally beautiful areas.

鈥淲e are interested in the principles behind RuralZED although our two key concerns are, does the design work in a rural setting and can we afford to build small numbers of the homes without economies of scale?鈥�

Dunster was not available for comment.

Source

Housing Today