This innovative mixed-use building of 565 sq metres (6,082 sq ft) combines a two-bedroom house with a large open-plan office and a three- storey tower that serves as practical and useful library stack with a reading room on top and also boasts a gazebo. Instead of the usual bricks, tiles or slates of conventional buildings this one is built using willow hurdles, bales of straw, steel, glass, tin, polycarbonate sheeting, sandbags and gabions- used here as load bearing structures with lumps of concrete instead of stones. Raised off the ground on columns to permit undercroft parking, the sandbag walls protect the office from the noise of adjacent trains, the padded glass-fibre quilt, coated with silicon, acts as a rain screen, protecting the timber frame underneath. The tin is used to protect the straw bales and the whole steel- framed structure sits on springs to dampen vibrations from the railway. The composting toilets in the office block and the solar-powered bathroom are flushed with rainwater from the sedum-planted roof and the window frames are made from recycled railway sleepers. The RIBA Judges agreed that it should be given an award as an “initiative: hopefully challenging the complacency and manners of most London buildings.” Photography: Paul Smoothy (07970 910571)
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