Episode Information Trade Secrets Cheltenham

Date Published:

17/06/2008

As Tim and Zoe found out in this week's episode of Grand Designs, building underground is sometimes the only way to get planning permission and that's just as true in the countryside as it is in towns.

Here on the wild Pembrokeshire coast, conventional new builds wouldn't have stood a chance, but the planners fell in love with this underground house called Malator. Seeing the sleek futuristic earth shelter tucked away in the contours of the land you can see why.

Malator does a great PR job for earth shelters by challenging the preconceptions we have about living underground. Here's a project with masses of natural light, and a real sense of space created by extensive use of glazing wherever possible. In fact, the building itself forms a kind of tunnel, so it's possible to stare right through it and out to sea.

For the more eco-conscious, take this earth shelter. With top notch environmental credentials, this house is totally integrated into its environment, having minimal impact upon the landscape in which it sits. Intelligent design is allowing low-impact shelters such as this to go even further with their use of natural light and heat sources.

This house has been built to maximise the light and heat available direct from the sun. Glass allows the sun's rays in, and it is captured in the bare concrete walls like a giant storage heater. The covering earth insulates infinitely more efficiently than standard brick, and while this property may lack some of the traditional home comforts, its impact on the environment is curtailed to an absolute minimum.

Earth shelters cost 40% less than a more standard building, and with miniscule running costs they make an ideal solution for the budget-conscious. This is the UK's first social housing earth shelter project, and with high praise from the industry and residents alike, it's easy to see why the trend for going underground could be on the up...