Lee, S., 2022.

New House at 547 Chester Road, Woodford

The artefact is a new house, whose design and construction was supervised by the author. The project adapted an existing restaurant with a long history of adhoc change into an A-rated sustainable home. Using new retrofit principles the structure was entirely overclad in insulation and two cladding systems (brick slips and timber boarding), with a high airtightness rating and triple-glazed window units. Almost uniquely in the speculative housing market the project design removes the need for fossil-fuel heating and hot water systems, deploying a combination of air source heat pump and photovoltaic technologies.

Designed and built between 2019 and 2022 it was released for sale in Jun 2022.

Despite the risks of the extra investment required, the full value of the property was quickly realised as the house sold at its asking price within three weeks.

The project is relatively newly completed and will be first occupied by the purchasers in November 2022. Our intention is to continue monitoring the house to gather post-occupancy information, in order to verify the performance of the house in use, benchmarked against the prevailing domestic energy costs.

The outcome of this study will help establish the viability of this approach to building reuse, and sits within a broader research interests in the Manchester School of Architecture Continuity in Architecture Atelier and my role as MArch Technology Lead.