Shell House is a new form of urban housing that answers the problems of elderly mobility, the aspiration for a garden view without maintenance upkeep, and the need to build a sustainable community to reduce crime. It is economical to construct, ecologically and socially sustainable, attractive to all age groups and flexible to changing lifestyles. The house extends the garden into a very low maintenance sedum roof with Velux roof lights drawing light into the rear of the house. The largest expanse of glazing faces south to enhance winter solar gain, while also providing expansive views of an artificial landscape created by neighbouring sedum roofs. When the upkeep of the garden becomes too much work, it can be replaced with sedum.
Mobility and flexibility
Traditional terraced houses face each other across a street with views between neighbours restricting elevational distances between buildings. Shell House enables the ground floor plan to extend nearer to the neighbour’s site through its use of Velux rooflights, thereby providing ground floor bedroom space as well as views of a low profile ‘landscape’ rather than an unmentioned backyard or neighbouring brickwork elevation.
The house is a simple construction of insulated blockwork cross walls with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) spanning between them and covered in a sedum roof. This ‘shell’ provides the flexibility for the house to transform over the occupants’ lifetime to suit their requirements for additional bedrooms or even subdivision into flats.
The community
Fundamentally important to the elderly is the fact that most of the living space is on the ground floor with a south-facing terrace enabling a direct connection with the community. The architect believes that to keep crime low a community with a mix of ages is important in providing the various activities that enable self-policing of space to occur naturally, while also building an evolving and sustainable sense of community.
Sustainability and construction
The house is based on a 5 m wide and 40 m long plot, including roads, parking and paving. It achieves a density of 50 homes per hectare for terraced housing and 100-150 homes per hectare for flats. The house is constructed using the Siptec Duplex Wall SIP system which comprises a CFC-free insulation sandwiched between timber OSB boards spanning between blockwork party walls. The walls sit on a precast foundation system consisting of steel piles, a single piece concrete base and floor beams. Excavated soil then forms the north facing earth bund. On demolition the prefabricated elements can be reclaimed and the steel piles extracted for reuse or recycling. In addition to the 200 mm thick insulation in the SIP panels, further insulation is provided by a 200 mm thick Bauder sedum roof. An earth bund, storage for bikes, bins and a rainwater tank are kept to the north providing an additional insulating buffer. Deep reveals and automated blinds to the south facing glazing maximise winter solar gain while reducing summer overheating. Cross ventilation is provided by automated opening windows and the use of the Velux Integra system. The Optimal ISX system provides the homeowner with real time reporting of environmental and utility data from their television, enabling them to assess where efficiencies could be made in energy use during the day.
Underfloor heating provides an unobtrusive and effective form of space heating without obstructing the flexibility of the space and is housed beneath a fully accessible floor. This enables future developments in technology to be easily accommodated. A fully accessible service duct behind the stairs maintains service accessibility vertically. Internal walls are of a lightweight construction for flexibility but use Fermacell board, enabling easy installation of additional handrails for the elderly as required. South facing solar panels and a ground source heat pump provide most of the house’s energy. Rainwater is collected and reused in toilet flushing and gardening, helping to reduce water consumption. Sensorflow automated tap controls also reduce water usage and aid those unable to manipulate tap handles.
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