The former art teacher drew plans for the house on the back of an envelope. He didn’t need any special planning permissions since it was classified as a summer home. Buck spent two years gathering natural and reclaimed materials for construction. It took him an additional eight months to construct it with his bare hands; he didn’t use any power tools at all.
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For the 300 sq. ft. floor space, Buck rescued the floorboards from a neighbor’s unused skip. He retrieved the windscreen of an old lorry and converted the glass into windows. The walls are painted with a mixture of chalk and plant resin. The roof is a simple wooden frame thatched with straw from nearby fields.
via English Farmer Builds Incredible Hobbit House for Just 150 Pounds | Oddity Central – Collecting Oddities.
Inhabitat has a great feature on this wonderful eco-house in trouble. Don’t miss it, or the opportunity to sign the petition to save it.
The Pembrokeshire County Council has given Charlie Hague and his partner Megan two months to demolish their beautiful hobbit home, which has a green roof and lime-plastered straw bale walls. Charlie built the home on his father’s property over a period of one year using techniques learned from the nearby Lammas eco-village in West Wales. Prior to that, before Megan fell pregnant, they were living in a caravan. Certain that the planning council would not give them permission to build the home, Charlie went ahead anyway, but applied retroactively for permits. These were denied because “the benefits of a low-impact development do not outweigh the harm to the character and appearance of the countryside having regard to the provisions of the development plan,” ruled the inspector.
via Beautiful Hobbit Home to be Demolished for Being “Harmful to Rural Countryside” | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building.
Reclamation Administration: News and Research on Building Material Waste Prevention