On 29th September six of us from CCF visited Hockerton Housing Project, UK’s first earth- sheltered, self-sufficient ecological housing development, near Newark.
It’s an inspiring triumph of design and shared effort!
It took project members 3 years to get planning permission and then, starting in 1996, they largely self-built their amazing homes, while living in caravans on-site. The 5 houses are in a long row, heated by sunlight to a beautifully simple design by Robert and Brenda Vale. The building has so much thermal mass, mostly from its concrete construction, and such good insulation that the interior remains between 17 and 23°C year-round, purely from passive heating.
The north side is earth-sheltered, making the building nearly invisible from the road. I worried whether inside the house might feel like being in a cave: not at all! It was interesting to learn what hasn’t worked out in such a radical design over 14 years of use: hot water was provided by “Air to Water’ heat pumps, but some failed with no replacement/repair available, so that now their renewable electricity is used. It’s easy to say with hindsight, that solar thermal might have been a better solution, but it’s hard to install 
now. The concrete room division reduces flexibility of the internal spaces, but there was good thermal design reasons for this. Overall this bold, affordable, self-built design seems to work amazingly well, providing beautiful, convivial space, with no fuel bills or emissions.
Bill did a great job showing us round, including water treatment (they have no mains water), wind-generators and PV ( useful earnings from electricity sales) , their gardening, sheep and chickens (providing about 40% of their food) and their co-operative business running tours, workshops, talks, consultancy- all these tasks being shared by residents who have outside jobs too. Of the 5 householders only 2 have changed in this time, which must indicate a satisfying and mostly pleasurable way of life.
Thankyou for this inspiring glimpse of a successful ecological community!