Greencore Construction built Marsh Baldon as a speculative build which was sold on completion to a private buyer.
Ian Pritchett, managing director of Greencore Construction is well known in building conservation circles. He is a builder who has written and lectured extensively in association with SPAB, the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings. Ian is dedicated to the development of lime-based building products and sustainable building solutions, and transferring these materials from the world of historical buildings to the new build sector. The process of building in hemp/lime has been used in the UK for more than 12 years, but very few houses have been constructed so far using this material in panel form. “Historically the material has been cast on site,” he explains, “but with the British weather, it causes constant drying problems, so we manufacture the hemp/lime panels offsite in our factory. This speeds up the build process – our buildings can be wind and water-tight within a matter of days, excluding foundations.”
Greencore’s aim is simply to build modern, comfortable, healthy homes to Passivhaus energy efficiency standards. “We believe in only using high performance, natural building materials, so that the homes we build have the least amount of impact on the environment. Using natural materials means we can ‘lock in’ the carbon to the building,” continues Ian.
