Chalk Wall House Tours for West Dorset Open Eco Homes

September 25, 2017

This weekend Sam gave tours around Chalk Wall House - a new self-build eco house built in Dorchester Dorset. It was part of the annual West Dorset Open Eco Homes event which has grown year on year to showcase different homes in the area with sustainable and ecological features. This passive solar eco house was the first completed project by Barefoot Architects in back 2010, and exemplifies our approach to creative strategies to unlock difficult sites and provide alternative thinking. The house is built from Chalk excavated from the site which helps to make it a low impact, low energy home to live in. The timber form work used to form the massive earth walls was re-used to make the timber frame for the roof, floors, and walls which are clad with Western Red Cedar Shingles shown below. A modular glu-laminated frame sits on to and into the Chalk and supports a cantilevered covered entrance space which doubles as solar shading to the South facing living room. Features include a biomass boiler, MVHR, undferfloor heating, green roofs, solar thermal water heating and rainwater harvesting. We designed the project with Integral Engineering Design in Bath and research and testing from Professor Pete Walker at Bath University.