Project and Sustainability Award 2000 Click any image for a larger view. Click here to download PDF document.

Designer Bill Dunster Developer The Peabody Trust Contractor GTCM Planning Authority London Borough of Sutton

The residents here are getting just a little tired of being portrayed in the press and on television as some kind of strange and esoteric community. For these are quite ordinary people who have jumped at the chance to gain access to high quality affordable housing, designed through a rational analysis of the whole energy process. What they do have in common is an understanding that it is in all our long term interests to make better use of finite resources.

BedZED stands for Zero (fossil) Energy Development (the prefix refers to its location). A combined heat and power unit serves the whole scheme, fuelled by woodchip waste. Reed bed tanks recycle the ‘black’ (foul) and ‘grey’ (waste) water for re-use in the homes, together with stored rainwater. The jauntily coloured cowls on the roofs serve the necessary purpose of providing automatic ventilation to the homes, recycling waste heat at nil cost. And photovoltaic cells will help power the planned fleet of shared electric cars.

In spite of the apparently uniform layout – stemming from the need to provide orientation to the south, for active and passive solar gain – there is a wide variety of housing on the site, ranging from houses for sale to flats and maisonettes for rent or shared ownership. All have access to private open space, whether at ground level, or in ‘sky gardens’ on the first and second floors, above north-facing live / work units. And all have full height, full width conservatories facing south beyond the living areas.

Energy costs are £25 a quarter per unit. There is a clubroom, a sports centre, and, soon to be, a nursery. The residents largely work locally, or on the site itself, and would be hard put to it to find a place nearby which offers the same quality of accommodation at an equivalent price. And they have found that even sceptics referred from the local Council waiting list have seen the logic of separating waste for recycling after a matter of weeks. This is very much an inclusive community, and it works.