Underground Dwellings

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Living underground has long been the stuff of fantasy and fiction: Bilbo Baggins in his burrow, the Tellytubbies in their grass-covered gaff, a gallery of cat-stroking Bond villians plotting world destruction from high-tech subterranean strongholds...

But you don't have to have hairy feet, a trippy psychedelic disposition, or a bad case of misanthropic megalomania to contemplate an abode in the bowels of the earth.

Environmentalists searching for answers to Green House meltdown have long been aware that the natural insulation of the earth is extremely energy-efficient and provides perfect cover for the creation of eco-friendly, low impact accommodation. In a fine example of the nature providing a cure for every ailment, the answer to the hole in the ozone layer may well be a hole in the ground.

The Hole Story
Earth-sheltered housing, as it's know, is well established in other parts of the world but is not exactly a widespread phenomenon here. The first British example was built back in the late 70s when the architect Arthur Quarmby attracted huge media attention by constructing Underhill, an earth-sheltered house on the West Yorkshire moors.

Mole Manor Pool
This was later followed by Mole Manor, a remarkable project designed by Quarmby for Stuart Bexon in the small hamlet of Westonbirt, Gloucestershire (1983).

This amazing oval-shaped structure, complete with swimming pool, grand airy spaces and imposing classical pillars looks like some kind of perfectly preserved Roman villa buried for generations but now uncovered by archaeologists. Look at the pictures and you half expect to see a bloke in a toga returning from the baths.

So brilliantly was Mole Manor designed that it gave the lie to the understandable belief that an earth-sheltered house would be a miserable hole in the ground, damp, dark and unremittingly claustrophobic. It has since been recognised as an icon of twentieth century architecture and was recently voted as one of the 12 "most desirable pads on the planet" by the Sunday Times colour supplement.

Not bad going for an innovative architectural project. But despite the ground-breaking efforts of Quarmby and Bexon earth-sheltered housing has yet to really take root. There are, says David Woods, secretary of the British Earth Sheltering Association, about 20 houses in Britain, a pretty unimpressive total when compared with the 100,000 in the US and the 40 million in China.

Low Impact

Mole Manor

But if the numbers are not especially impressive, the projects certainly are. Aside from Underhill and Mole Manor, there has recently been a great deal of media interest in Labour MP Bob Marshall Andrews' underground house in Pembrokeshire.

Nicknamed the tellytubby house by locals, this is built into an 80ft cliff with stunning views over St Bride's Bay. But like Mole Manor, it is barely visible beneath its grass covered mound and blends perfectly with the surrounding landscape.

This, indeed, is one of the great merits of the technique. The term 'low impact' has a literal connotation here, since earth-sheltered homes, especially those constructed using the atrium method (a sunken house with a central covered courtyard), often appear as a little more than a grassy knoll with perhaps a glass dome interrupting the greenery. Quarmby even considered introducing a flock of sheep to graze on the roof of Underhill.

Energy Efficient
If earth-sheltered houses are perfect for environmentally sensitive sites, they are also remarkably efficient when it comes energy use. Mole Manor was monitored by scientists at Bath University, who concluded that the design used only 25% of the energy that a standard house would use on the same site.

Hockerton
This figure has since been confirmed by the Hockerton Housing Project in Nottinghampshire. The first earth-sheltered, self-sufficient ecological housing development in the UK, this terrace is a self-built co-operative run by a team of five committed families.

Unlike Mole Manor, which is dug into the ground, this project is built into a south-facing hill and is reckoned to be the most energy-efficient purpose-built development in Europe. The residents generate their own clean energy using a wind turbine, harvest their own water, recycle waste materials via a floating reed bed (also a recreational lake and wildlife habitat), and cause no pollution or CO2 emissions.

Hockerton

But perhaps the most remarkable feature of Hockerton is the fact that it completely dispenses with the need for space heating. The south facing side of the house consists of a triple-glazed conservatory which collects heat from the sun.

This is stored in the heavily insulated concrete fabric and is released as the temperature in the rooms drops below that of the concrete. The same method provides hot water via an air-to-water heat pump in the conservatory.

Hockerton has been carefully monitored by boffins from the DETR, who concluded that the "energy consumption is 75% lower than for a conventional house." Because of the earth-covering and the use of heavy thermal insulation, temperatures in winter averaged about 17C (Hockerton say 18-20 is more accurate), while summer temperatures were typically about 24C.

Hockerton

In the summer months the houses are ventilated through a large opening light which keeps everything comfortably cool; and in winter a heat exchanger ensures warm air from the bathroom, kitchen and utility room is redistributed throughout the house.

"It is", says Nick

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