Four friends who worked together for Sustainable Dunblane (including Locate’s Chris Morgan) got together in 2010 to try and realise a dream of building truly sustainable homes for themselves and their families. Having been offered the opportunity to become involved with an ongoing development, planning permission was granted, complex land purchase negotiations were completed, the site was cleared and an enabling contract to provide serviced plots was completed in 2012.

Building Warrant drawings were eventually completed in 2013 and after tender prices came in high, cost-cutting enabled the group – minus one couple – to start on site with Perth-based Osprey Construction in February 2014. The original intention of getting the homes certified to passivhaus standards was sacrificed to bring tender prices down to budget levels, but the houses will still be extremely energy efficient. Externally, the houses have been designed to an agreed code with adjacent properties and feature a pale green timber cladding with stonework at Ground Floor and a zinc roof which reflects another recent development over the road.

The houses have spacious, open-plan Ground Floors and incorporate various future-proofing strategies. They are highly insulated and airtight with triple glazing and high performance MVHR ventilation systems meaning the houses need very little heat input. That heat which is needed can be provided by a single copper pipe around the perimeter of each floor. The houses are timber framed using offsite panels and will feature natural materials and finishes throughout.

Construction was formally completed late 2014 just as the fourth house got underway, but all three households have continued working on the houses and gardens through the Winter and into 2015.