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When Ben Law first approached us to discuss the use Onduline roofing sheets
on his Woodland House, he typically never mentioned the construction was to
be featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs programme. He solely focused on his
vision of constructing a timber framed house set in his working environment
at Prickly Nut Wood, Sussex. The house was to be constructed utilising a
fusion of the locally available timber and traditional construction
techniques, with his individualistic environmental philosophy of the
sustainable use of resources.
It is the measure of Ben Law that the resulting Grand Designs programme was
a one of the most honest and compelling of Kevin McCloud’s excellent ground
breaking series.
Ben Law has a rare quality in a man as he lives by his beliefs, he does not
shout what he has found, but listen and the philosophy underpinning this
build can perhaps teach us all something, by questioning the very basis of
our modern consumer society.
Tony Knell
Onduline Building Products Ltd,
Foreword
KEVIN MCLOUD
Ben Law is an
extraordinary man. Not exactly a warrior for his cause, more the quiet
victor. Ben has proved that it’s possible to make a good living as an
underwoodsman – coppicing, hurdle making and charcoal burning, simply by
working hard and applying good commercial business sense. He’s also proved
that it’s possible to design and construct an elegant, sophisticated and
truly environmentally-friendly home from materials around you, providing
you design with diligence and sensitivity. And he has proved beyond a
shadow of a doubt that great architecture need not be urban, or glamorous or
loud.
I first met Ben when filming the third series of
Grand Designs
for Channel 4. We followed over a year the steady, measured construction of
his house and watched coppiced chestnut being willed into a new form as a
dwelling. It was clear then that because of Ben’s highly unusual planning
circumstances and the exceptional nature of his job and skills that came
with it, we were witnessing something rare; an event in building that
doesn’t happen at all often. And in the three years since, we have not been
able to find a project with the equivalent integrity of man, material and
design. I suspect we won’t for a long time.
Sustainable is a word that in the last few years
has become almost meaningless. It’s now so overworn a word, it’s become so
floppy you can take it and stuff it with whatever you like: organic straw;
urethane foam insulation or just hot air. Whenever I need to remind myself
what the word really means, I think of Ben’s house and how we managed to
make a film about sustainable construction whilst mentioning the word just
once. Here is a house so ecologically sound, it breathes in time to the
trees around it. Nearly very bit of wood in the place (and it is nigh all
wood) grew in that forest and was coppiced. The subsequent coppice stumps
or stools are now regrowing so fast and gulping in their youth so much
carbon dioxide, that within a few years the environmental impact of
constructing and living in this building will have been more than
outweighed. Putting it into hard environmental language, this, in carbon
terms, is an invisible house.
But it mustn’t remain too invisible because it’s also
a beautiful house and one that answers eloquently to its setting. Ben has a
shrewd eye for design, proportion and the subtleties of colour and
materials. The result is a delightful building which appears as rooted as it
can possibly be; one, that like all good architecture, responds
intelligently to both its context and to human beings. Ben’s home has been
made out of its very context, by him. You couldn’t find a house that has a
more intimate relationship with people and place.
Book Details and web links:
THE WOODLAND HOUSE
As featured on Channel 4¹s Grand Designs
by Ben Law
Foreword by Kevin McCloud
AUTHOR & HOUSE FEATURING ON TV
on Channel 4¹s Grand Designs Revisited, Summer 2005
BOOK LAUNCH at Channel 4¹s Grand Designs Live
the ExCel centre, Docklands, London, Saturday 11th June 2005 - 12noon until
2.00pm
In 2003 Ben Law captivated the nation by building his woodland house on
Channel 4¹s Grand Designs programme so popular was the show that it was
repeated in 2004. The presenter, Kevin McCloud, said that Ben was a born
designer and that his was the most watched (over 5 million viewers) and
popular programme of the original series. Kevin loved the project so much
that he has written the foreword to this book! A Grand Designs Revisited
programme is planned to air soon after the book launch.
Full of stunning colour photographs, this is a visual guide to how Ben built
his outstandingly beautiful home in the woods. It is also a practical manual
and the story of a man realising a lifetime¹s dream to build one of the most
sustainable and beautiful homes in Britain.
The Woodland House gives details of the evolving design process, the
identifying of materials, costings, project management and the actual
building. It proves that low cost, low impact and high aesthetics can go
hand in hand and that it is possible to build green and to build affordably.
The book will appeal to all fans of the Grand Designs series. As the
pre-eminent UK example of building with wood and renewable materials this
will also appeal to the growing number of people with environmental and
green interests as well as to the building community.
The Author
Ben Law is an innovative woodsman who has lived and worked West Sussex for
over 20 years. He is a woodlands expert held in the highest regard and
author of The Woodland Way A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland
Management.
The Publishers
Permanent Publications produces Permaculture Magazine and leading titles on
sustainable living, including Patrick Whitefield¹s critically acclaimed The
Earth Care Manual A Permaculture Handbook for Britain and other Temperate
Climates.
THE WOODLAND HOUSE
by Ben Law
ISBN: 1 85623 031 7
PAGES: 96pp
SIZE: 250 x 220mm
BINDING: Hardback
ILLUSTRATIONS: 98 colour photographs, 10 line drawings and 3 tables
PRICE: £14.95 + p&p
PERMANENT PUBLICATIONS / PERMACULTURE MAGAZINE
The Sustainability Centre
Droxford Road
East Meon
Hampshire
GU32 1HR
Tel: 0845 458 4150 (Local rate)
Tel: 01730 823 311
Fax: 01730 823 322
Web: www.permaculture.co.uk
CHANNEL 4
Sussex, the woodmans cottage
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/grand-designs/houses/S/sussex_woodman.html |
