Plummerswood Passivhaus,

Scottish Borders

(Completed while at Gaia Architects)

An award-winning contemporary 3-bedroom house completed in 2011, Plummerswood was the third building in the UK to be built from ‘Brettstapel’ - an innovative glue free form of ‘massive timber’ construction.

It achieves the ‘Passivhaus’ standard of energy efficiency, meaning that it is extremely well insulated and draughtproof and uses heat from the sun and occupants to keep it warm.

Transporting the Brettstapel panels from Austria resulted in CO2 emissions of 16 tonnes: however, the huge quantity of wood used in the building stores over 200 tonnes of CO2, essentially making it carbon negative!

The external cladding is locally sourced, very durable European larch; internal joinery, doors, flooring and furniture are all made from hardwood sourced from the Borders.