Mimi De Costa and her husband Andre, a doctor, had spent years looking for a plot of land when they came across a bungalow in Kent.
They bought it for the site - 12 acres of organic pasture and woodland - and started to plan a new home for their sons, Sean and Tye, that would suit a lower impact way of living.
Andre and Mimi will live in the bungalow until the new house is built, then it will be demolished. But what they're building isn’t going to be a reproduction of the bungalow. It's a squarish, modular building, with glass walls from floor to ceiling. The outside of the building is clad in cedar that will go grey to match the surrounding oak trees.
The idea is that by prefabricating most of the house it should be quicker and easier to put together on site. But although it will be precision made, it isn’t a kit house.
Each component will be built by a different company, starting with the concrete plinth.
A factory in Germany will then supply the cross-laminated, solid timber panels for the main structure. But the timber is only half the story. Another Belgian company will supply the very special windows that act as electrically powered radiators, heating the house with infrared radiation.
The ground floor is arranged around a courtyard garden with a garage on one side. Largely open plan and L-shaped, it’ll contain a larder, kitchen, living room and a large central staircase-cum-circular storage wall with work stations. The ground floor will also house an indoor swimming pool heated by solar panels.
Inside, the house will be bare and straightforward. There’ll be no plaster or paint; the wooden walls will be left exposed, as will the polished concrete floor. A polished plywood tube will join the ground and first floors, which will be separated by a steel frame so that the house appears to float in the meadow.
Upstairs, there will be four bedrooms and a master bedroom overlooking the green roofs below. Following the glazing lines, another timber firm will clad the house in vertical cedar strips.
The effect of this building should be elegant - a wooden pavilion set against the woods. At £650,000, though, the price won’t be minimal - so to save money Mimi’s going to manage the project herself.
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