Dartmoor Eco House
Dartmoor
Private Residential | Sustainable Project
The Dartmoor Eco-House project is a design for an architecturally striking and sustainable family home set in the Dartmoor National Park.
Part buried in the ground, the project employs traditional local materials of timber and stone in an elegant and simple contemporary design.
A series of timber hoops define the form of the building
The repetition of the larger and smaller hoops are set against each other to form a central elliptical corridor. The larger spaces this form creates are given over to living rooms with extensive views out over the surrounding countryside. The smaller hoops provide spaces for the kitchen and study, and are set against the more intimate landscape of the wooded hill.
An elegant eco construction
The building is set within an excavation into the side of the hill whereby a half storey undercroft houses the various support services and also a series of pad foundations onto which the structural timber hoops sit. The result is that the whole nature of the building form is expressed and can be clearly understood. The building is not one with its foundations lost underground – it is simpler and more elegant than that.
External micro mower plant
The internal elliptical corridor forms part of a route that extends through the house and into the landscape at either side. An external micro mower plant is located at one end of the route, and at the other end of this axis is a bird hide to quietly watch the varied local wildlife. In between these smaller structures sits the building.