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Suffolk Green Building Wins An Award

Posted: 10/11/2006

The Green Light Trust, an Suffolk based environmental charity, has won an RIBA award for its new green headquarters.What started out as a dilapidated traction engine maintenance shed has ended up as Suffolk’s first carbon-negative building project. And the exposed hemp and lime block walls have earned the nick name 'The Weetabix House'.

Ralph Carpenter, of Modece Architects in Bury St Edmunds, took on the project, which required complex negotiations with the planning authority, overcoming local objections and large-scale fundraising. He devised a scheme that moved the existing shed 130ft (40m) into the plot, re-using the timbers of the original shed, after applying limewash to protect against beetle infestation and fungal attack. This prevented the need to use toxic chemical treatment

Lime was used throughout the building, and no concrete, fire risks were also minimalised as lime is an ideal fire retardant for timber-frame buildings. Wattle and daub using hazel from local woodland and local clay made up the interior walls. Other green features are solar panels for water heating and linseed-oil paint, which has less environmental impact than conventional paints. Sewage treatment is carried out by their own reedbed system.

Another intriguing locally sourced material is the hemp and lime block. The blocks, which look similar to mini straw bales, are used for insulation as well as contributing to the carbon-negative factor because hemp absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows. Rainwater is recycled from the galvanised iron roof, and the building is heated with a woodchip boiler running on coppiced timber, again from local woods.

The building project has proved to be an inspiration. A neighbour is making his own reedbed. Ralph, the architect, is fitting a log boiler in his own house. And Nigel Hughes and Ric Edelman, the moving force behind the Green Light Trust, are installing solar panels and hemp-block insulation to the walls of their cottage as well as tending to the planting of their woodland, which will be ready for their own heating system in a few years.

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