Eco-village architecture won't be wacky

Plans for an eco-village in Co Tipperary are gaining momentum. Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, reports

Eco-architecture still has an image problem. Mention it to anyone and the first thing they're likely to think of is an oddly-shaped structure with a grass roof and lots of things sticking out of it. So when Sustainable Projects Ireland (SPI), headed by the irrepressible Gavin Harte, first mooted the creation of a "sustainable community" back in 1999, the prospect was that it would be made-up buildings like this, inhabited by New Age types ploughing their own furrows.

After toying with a site in the Carlow countryside, SPI - now trading as "The Village" - settled for a site right off the main street of Cloughjordan in north Tipperary, and commissioned Dublin-based Solearth Ecological Architecture, headed by Brian O'Brien, to draw up a master plan.

Cloughjordan has its advantages. Roughly equidistant from Nenagh, Roscrea and Thurles, it is also on the under-used rail line - the most direct route from Limerick to Dublin. But the plan is not so unrealistic as to fail to provide car-parking spaces - one for each of 132 new homes.

After a series of public meetings locally, Gavin Harte persuaded North Tipperary County Council to zone a third of the 75-acre site - formerly the Grove Field of Cloughjordan Hall - for a "sustainable extension" to the village. The remaining land would consist of a farm and a woodland area.

A three-storey pub, the Lime Tree, would have to be demolished to gain access to the site from High Street. This building has been derelict for eight years and is now in poor condition, even though it "undoubtedly had some heritage value", as Solearth's planning application concedes.

A two-storey barn, or coach-house, to the rear would also "reluctantly" be demolished to make way for a new street linking the existing main street to the new community in its backland area. In both cases, any elements worth recycling would be salvaged from the demolitions.

"Seamless integration" is one of the objectives, so the new "welcome street" would be open to the village, as would an "attractive lattice" of squares, streets and green routes as well as a river promenade to be developed alongside a stream that meanders through the site. The master plan allows for the possibility of connecting its streets to a network of new streets that might be developed in the future on adjoining backland sites. Neighbouring owners may also develop their property to exploit the potential of the tree-lined "welcome street".

Dispersed one-off houses comprise only a small proportion (less than 4 per cent) of the 132 new homes proposed.

Just over 21 per cent would be apartments, in three-storey buildings, nearly 42 per cent terraced, 18 per cent semi-detached and 15 per cent detached.

"Affordability is fostered by the creation of a tight, medium-scale development with plots which allow development of a variety of different home options from apartments to detached homes available at various prices," according to the promoters' outline planning application.

All that's being sought at the moment is outline approval for the master plan. The detailed design of individual elements will come later, in line with an "ecological charter" which covers the delivery of infrastructure and services as well as laying down guidelines for the design of housing.

"The designs of all of the buildings . . . will be united by having to adhere to a pre-determined set of controls governing scale, position and palette of materials so as to guarantee the realisation of the master plan and the creation of a coherent and harmonious townscape," the architects say.

Under the master plan, 70 per cent of the housing would be south-facing to take advantage of natural light and solar gain. Heating would be supplied by a community-scale combined heat and power (CHP) plant, fuelled by coppiced willow on-site (with some additional wood pellets).

The Grove Field contains many fine mature trees - predominantly beech and lime - which contribute to its existing pastoral character, while a number of the hedgerows also contain mature trees, mostly sycamore. They would all be retained by the housing layout.

The handling of wastewater is also a priority. All 132 homes are to have "urine separator" toilets flushed by harvested rainwater, while sewage treatment would rely on a series of reed-beds, sand filters and ponds - a system used in Ballymaloe House, among others. The third of the site allocated for agriculture would be developed as an organic farm and might even "explore more innovative farming practices such as perma-culture or bio-dynamic farming". What it produced would be sold at a weekly farmers' market in the village.

Community gardens are also proposed where residents may reserve an allotment for growing herbs and small crops while two larger areas, situated near the woodland, would provide larger plots for residents to lease to grow most of their own food - an aspiration of the project.

Mixed use is also one of the objectives. A proposed farmyard, located adjacent to the existing farmyard of Cloughjordan Hall, would serve as a location for enterprise units, incubator units for starter businesses, maintenance facilities and more traditional farmyard activities.

Traffic is "backgrounded" - in other words, cars are treated as "guests" and largely separated from the main pedestrian routes and children's play areas, or "kid zones". The central spine, leading from Cloughjordan's main street, would be vehicle-free other than at its entrance.

Precedents cited in the application include the Camphill Communities clustered around Kilkenny and Carlow, where people in care lead tranquil lives in a farm setting. Abroad, models include the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland and the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales.

The Village Homes project in Davis, California, is a developer-led commercial housing scheme that explored traffic separation and solar planning as long ago as the 1980s, while Australia's Crystal Waters eco-village is "also proving socially and ecologically sustainable after two decades".

So how will the Cloughjordan project materialise? According to its promoters, the co-op has maintained a steady membership of 20-30 households since it was formed four years ago, and each of these "will represent an eventual member household within the community when developed".

Seed money from their membership fees has kept it afloat. The Village also has an active database of 650 people who have expressed interest in becoming members, many of whom may take the plunge after planning permission is obtained for the project, probably in the spring.

Thereafter, members' fees will be exchanged for long leases or freehold title on plots of one sort or another, on which homes can be built in line with the master plan, which was devised in collaboration with Sally Starbuck and Buro Happold. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.