New build

The Need for Speed

It only took four days to build the shell of Ruth Butler and Julian Sutherland’s contemporary courtyard passive house using cross-laminated timber panels.

The house was shortlisted for the Passivhaus Awards 2018

Story: Debbie Jeffery. Pictures: Peter Langdown Photography

In Brief

For Ruth Butler and her husband, Julian Sutherland, building a home was virtually inevitable. “As an architect married to an engineer it was always something we planned to do,” explains Ruth, who set up her own practice after leaving London. She and Julian had been searching for a plot for some time and moved to the south coast with their daughter, Eva, to indulge their passion for sailing.

“When we finally found a garden plot we liked the planners tweaked our design so heavily that it was no longer a house we wanted to live in ourselves,” says Ruth. “We kept on looking, and found this plot instead, but selling the previous piece of land with planning permission in place helped to fund building our current home.”

Ruth and Julian purchased a compact brownfield site which had been the regional headquarters for the St John’s Ambulance, situated on a private lane near the centre of the small Hampshire town of Emsworth.

“The old ambulance garage needed to be demolished and the land was contaminated with oil. There was absolutely nothing to recommend it really, but despite this we could still see potential.” 

“We didn’t want somewhere rural because we prefer to live within walking distance of shops and to be part of a community,” explains Ruth. 

The plot is surrounded by a number of neighbours, who were wary of any development in such close proximity.

Neighbours had unsuccessfully opposed a previous planning application for a poorly designed dwelling, which overlooked many of their homes, and were concerned about Ruth and Julian’s plans for the plot.

“We met with them over several months and explained that we wanted to build a family home,” says Ruth. “I took Eva with me to visit the immediate neighbours and we discussed everything over tea and cake.”

Together, Ruth and Julian produced a new design which would allay the neighbours’ fears regarding overlooking. They also made a model of all the immediate houses to illustrate how little the new property would affect their outlook.

The sitting room and utility/plant room are located in the single-storey wing, with all living spaces opening onto the central courtyard through walls of sliding glass doors. A large garage/workshop was also a priority for Julian and has been located adjacent to the site entrance.

“For me, the more difficult a plot the better the outcome in terms of design,” says Ruth. “It requires something special and creative to make it work, and you try extra hard. With good design you can resolve all inherent difficulties.”

The planning department agreed wholeheartedly with the couple’s vision for the awkward plot, and their design was approved without issue. “Julian and I met each other designing the No 1 Court stadium at Wimbledon, and we work extremely well together, so there were no fallings out during the project,” says Ruth.

The family were living 10 minutes from site in a house Ruth had inherited from her family, which was old and draughty, but after two months this needed to be sold to fund the rest of the build and they moved into an equally chilly 1970s rental property overlooking the harbour in Emsworth.

In 2014 the plot was cleared of buried asbestos sheeting and decontaminated, with steel beams from the demolished St John’s ambulance garage recycled and used in the new garage structure. Bricks were also reclaimed, crushed and used as hardcore under the highly insulated concrete slab, which needed to be incredibly accurate in order to accommodate the prefabricated timber frame.

“From the start we were committed to a low-energy build, and later decided to achieve Passivhaus certification,” says Ruth. “We used software to test whether the design would meet the criteria and discovered that by upgrading our windows to composite triple-glazed units we could meet Passivhaus standards.

“It was amazingly straightforward, although there is always an element of concern regarding airtightness tests. It’s tested three times though, which gives you a chance to make further improvements.”

The cross-laminated timber panel system which the couple chose for the shell of their house is not only fast to build but is also inherently airtight. Following extensive research, they selected an Austrian manufacturer and the whole family flew out to visit the factory and see the fabrication of their panels.

“We went into a partnering contract with a builder we’d worked with before," says Ruth, who was on site daily running her architectural practice from a PortaKabin as well as project managing the build.

"We took everyone on a Passivhaus Trust training course so that we could learn together, and all end up speaking the same language.”

“As we were building through the winter it was a relief to see the shell of the house go up in just four days, creating a dry space for the rest of the trades to continue working. I was extremely busy with other projects so a reliable builder who could work from my plans was vital.”

It took seven months in total to complete the build, including installing three different roof finishes. The single-storey flat roof is a planted wild flower meadow, the garage is sedum, and the roof of the two-storey wing hosts an array of solar panels, hidden from view behind a small parapet wall.

Externally, the building has been meticulously clad in fire-treated vertical Siberian larch boarding, with every board screwed and plugged. Eva was responsible for choosing the colour for the orange entrance door, above which a yellow aluminium window canopy and blinker prevent overlooking into the master bedroom. She also helped to design her own bedroom, where a high-level bed deck has been constructed.

PROJECT

STRUCTURE

FIXTURES AND FITTINGS

Floorplans

The single-storey element of the house contains the sitting room and utility/plant room, with the kitchen/ diner, study and family room in the other wing below three bedrooms, an en suite and family bathroom.