Grand Designs | Incredible eco-home in Buckinghamshire

This incredible eco-home in Bletchley was the star of the show in the latest series of Grand Designs (s21 e04).

The self-heating house was the dream of Dr Andrew Smith and his wife Margretta. Dr Smith, an energy conservationist, designed the structure so that it could be heated all year-round by storing the warmth of summer in the insulated earth banks that surround the structure, with that earth then heating the home during the cold winter months.

In order draw the warmth of the sun into the home during summer, the house is designed with large sets of our SVG30 sliding doors that fill the rooms of the house, built into the side of a slope, full of natural light.

The doors, along with the clerestory fixed frame, full-height tilt & turn and SEF opening windows were installed by Folding Future, one of SUNFLEX UK’s national distributors, in January 2019, with the house completed in December 2020.

The experimental design and innovative construction proved a huge success, with the house able to maintain a consistent temperature inside despite the house featuring not a single radiator. The inside of the home is designed in an open-plan layout, with a stylish kitchen and sloping ceilings creating a bright, contemporary living space.

For more information about the project and to watch the episode in full see the Channel 4 website.

Images used courtesy of Channel 4/Freemantle Media.