Episode Information Maidstone: The Hi Tech Bungalow

Date Published:

03/06/2008

Bill and Jean Letley are building a new bungalow in their back garden, but this will be no ordinary bungalow. Embracing the latest home technologies, this will be a modern, accessible, efficient home.

When you are settled down and in your seventies, building a new house might not be at the top of your agenda. Bill and Jean are not only building a new bungalow in their back garden, but are embracing cutting-edge technologies to create a super-efficient, highly contemporary, easy to live in, single-storey home.

This is especially important for Bill, who is disabled and wants to maintain as much independence as possible.

Bill and Jean aren't hiring a builder. Instead they're entrusting the whole project to their daughter Jo and son-in-law Paul, who with little building experience, have to get to grips with numerous technologies that would phase the most experienced builders.

The bungalow is designed by the late great architect Richard Paxton for whom Paul once worked.

Everything about this build is inventive. The ground source heating system is incorporated into the piles of the building. The foundations are made from super speedy prototype steel, polystyrene and concrete with integrated underfloor heating. There's a moulded composite curved roof with embedded solar gain pipe work and integrated insulation.

This is no ordinary build and it will be no ordinary bungalow but for all the technology, the biggest challenge for Jo, who has given up her job in the city to build the house, will be to keep her 'clients' happy.

Bill and Jean are fortunate to be able to build their dream at the end of their garden. Like so many of Richard Paxton's buildings, their unconventional bungalow is as much a feat of engineering as architecture.

The footprint is an L-shape with a flat floor throughout so Bill can get around easily.

The heart of the house is a huge open plan living area made up of conservatory, kitchen, dining and living room. There are no narrow doorways or steps for Bill to worry about and the whole room is lit by a long glass wall looking out onto a decked garden.

At the top end are two guest bedrooms, each with en-suite bathrooms. At the other end of the house Bill and Jean's master bedroom has a roll-in wet room for Bill, and easy access to the outdoor patio.

From the outside, a curved vaulted roof, long expanses of glass and crisp white render give it a light modern feel.

It's a unique combination of hidden technologies in the building that make it super efficient to run, with all the doors, windows and curtains automated.

A ground source heat system embedded in the piles combines with underfloor heating and a unique solar collection system in the roof. Together these not only heat the building in winter but cool it in summer.