The Underground House
Cumbria’s First Earth-Sheltered House
The Build: October
To see how the house looks now, follow this link: Now
For pictures from during the build process. follow one of the links below:
A beautiful late autumn morning. The angled glass in the conservatory is frosted over - it clears quickly once the sun reaches it.
The two vertical reed beds. These are used alternately and will be planted with reeds. The outflow from these goes to a pair of horizontal reed beds.
The combination of vertical and horizontal reed beds should work well together to remove pollutants from our waste water.
One of those magical mornings when low mist shrouds the valleys.
One of the reasons why we choose to live here.
This view across the site illustrates the way both the house and the vet-space disappear into the landscape. The tops of both are visible, but both will blend in fully with the surrounding grass very soon.
We are starting to think hard about the planting scheme for the land around the house. Much of it will be left to return to the wild grass that was there before. But we do want to plant hedges and some trees as well, choosing things that are already growing locally like birch, rowan, whitebeam and willow, hawthorn, dogwood, honeysuckle and guelder rose.
A view of the two Titan reed beds and the pond beyond. The reeds have just been planted and we are running water through them and into the pond.
More of the matting has been laid than in the picture below. The soil is very sandy, so the matting will help stop it being washed or blown away as well as helping plants establish themselves.
The steep banks on either side of the house are being covered with natural fibre matting, which will stabilise the soil, allowing grass and other plants to take root. The material itself will slowly rot away over a number of years.
The site is still very red and raw, but we have sown a lot of grass seed and this is gradually turning red to green.
Looking out, looking in. On the final day's shoot, the camera team are using a camera on a long boom to get some sweeping shots of the house.
