Concepts for sustainable, low-cost prefabricated housing made from domestically grown timber and round-wood thinnings. The Home Grown House project (HGH) is a Higher Education Innovation Funded (HEIF) research project addressing the limited use of locally sourced, small-diameter round wood in construction in the south east of England and will focus on coppiced sweet chestnut timber for its natural durability and mechanical properties.
A demonstrator ‘kit of parts’ for constructing small scale buildings was assembled and structurally tested as the primary outcome of the research project.
Image Credit: London Metropolitan University, Home Grown House
What are the key innovative aspects of the project and the story behind it?
Sweet chestnut is a durable, straight growth, dimensionally stable timber well suited to use in buildings. However, very little UK-grown sweet chestnut roundwood is used in construction. The majority is converted into fencing or simply burnt as biomass. HomeGrownHouse (HGH) is a research project challenging this status quo by exploring new, value-added uses for coppiced sweet chestnut in buildings in the south-east of England. Kent and Sussex have among the highest numbers of new start building projects in the UK, alongside the most regional abundance of coppiced sweet chestnut. Yet the opportunities this presents for sustainable local timber use are being missed. The UK imports 82% of its wood products and rates of woodland management in Britain are low, with only 59% of UK woodlands under active management. Many formerly coppiced woodlands have fallen out of regular harvest cycles, are more prone to diseases and pests, and contain a mixture of small, medium and large diameter trees with few markets. With the HGH project we are addressing these issues by designing building components specifically with a range of small, medium and large diameter roundwood in mind. We designed this ‘kit of parts’ for disassembly and re-use and all cut components were sawn efficiently to reduce waste during milling. This low-waste, high yield philosophy means the components are cost-competitive with traditional imported alternatives.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20426445.2023.2223944
