New build eco house, Lewes, East Sussex.

The Modern House property link

• Gross Floor Area: 250m2
• Contract Value: £460K
• Build Rate: £1840/m2 + VAT (including garden)
• ‘U’ Values: Roof – 0.09W/m2K. Walls – 0.14W/ m2K. Floor – 0.16W/m2K.
• Heating source: High-efficiency gas condensing boiler, and solar thermal panels. Solar gain and MVHR system
• Carbon Impact: Low-Carbon
• Main Contractor: Brian Huntley Builders Ltd

The popular London based estate agent The Modern House are advertising our new build eco house located on Prince Edward's Road, Lewes, East Sussex.

We were appointed to design a new low energy family home which is an area we special in. Taking real pleasure in working with clients who had a keen interest in architecture, cutting edge design and the ambition to implement new technologies. The contemporary new-build house replaces a subsidence-ridden dilapidated bungalow which previously stood on the site. In addition to low energy performance the house also had to work aesthetically within a tricky suburban context of unusually high prominence within the historic town of Lewes in East Sussex.

The new dwelling is wrapped in cedar gap boarding on the West, South and East elevations, with the North elevation and North-facing pitch clad in dark rivened slate. Our intention was to create a home that made best use of the steep topography of the south facing site, while creating an affordable low carbon contemporary home for a family of four. Accessed off the street on the middle of three floors, the entrance storey reveals an unusually long south-facing view across neighbouring gardens. The southern aspect also allowed us to exploit useful solar gain whilst creating sheltered environments as well as links with the landscape.

The site, at the west end of Prince Edward’s Road in Lewes, is surrounded by houses which illustrate several decades of response and reaction to ecological and environmental design either as recent new builds or refurbishments. Prince Edward’s Road endeavours to advance low energy performance whilst making these technologies more integrated within its architecture and response to context. This is most obviously demonstrated by the roof system of photovoltaic and solar thermal panels and roof lights and the expanses of carefully designed passive solar glazing and shading of the south elevation. We believe the roof is the first of its kind in the UK.

Prince Edward’s Road demonstrates a 79% reduction in emission when compared with the UK’s average emission, which in real terms meets the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions target of an 80% reduction by 2050. The combination of a fully integrated photovoltaic and solar thermal tiled roof, and a whole house MVHR system (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) has manifest itself in a very energy efficient dwelling. The design is structurally lightweight, being largely timber framed, but with solid polished concrete floors to give enough thermal mass to stabalise temperatures.

The building is designed to take areas of high passive solar gain and redistribute the heat elsewhere in the building by way of the MVHR system. The Walls, floors and ceilings are all super-insulated with u-values of: roof u-values of 0.09 // floor 0.16 // walls 0.14. All of the above have contributed to a first years running of £302+vat.