A New, Old, Cottage, Cannock Chase AONB

The project expanded on the principals developed in the house of brick and tin. Once more the house was originally a 2 up 2 down semi-detached farm workers cottage dating from the mid-18th century, the characterful but poor performing solid brick walls and single glazing with traditional roof construction was a challenge to bring up to today’s standards of thermal performance and energy efficiency. The house had undergone a number of unsympathetic renovations and extensions through the past 150 years being slowly consumed by the extensions.

The design strategy looked to enhance the performance of the building towards passive house standards and re-orient the house to fully address the garden. The entire building has been wrapped with high performance insulation with a thickness set to achieve passive house standards, the roof and floors have been insulated to the same standard, finished with high performance composite windows, and wrapped with sustainably sourced timber cladding. What was a cold, damp, draughty cottage is now a home fit for the 21st century.