About the Hedgehouse
There is nothing new about people's living space being included within the landform of the planet.
Families still live very comfortably in cave houses in the Loire valley. The last true British troglodyte, a besom broom maker called Jack Leyland, left his West Midland cave in the early sixties - i.e. at about the same time that the Beatles were producing their first records.
Progress in 1960's
Notions of not having to trample on the earth as heavily as we in fact do, also began to surface in the early 60's. The idea strongly appealed to many young people (the hippies) wanting to return to a simpler life outside the cities.
Thousands participated, partly in revolt against the Vietnam war, and partly at the values of modern society - the Military Industrial Complex as it was called then.
The 1970's
This gentler approach towards nature as expressed by Earth Sheltering (E/Sing) continued to find favour until it was given a giant boost in the USA during the early 1970's. The Arab / Israeli war had exploded oil prices, so dwellings were built in great numbers to take advantage of E/Sing superior capacity to reduce energy use.
In Yorkshire, Arthur Quarmby constructed his wonderful underground palace, built around a swimming pool in a grotto, brilliantly lit by a huge skylight above. This is the context in which the HedgeHouse idea has been developed.
From the 1970's to now
The great environmental advantages of Earth Sheltering have not been lost on the more enlightened builders, so accommodation using earth cover can now be found around the world.
Because these projects tend to be built on large, non-urban sites, they can afford to be spread out, so they are usually single storey.
The Situation Now
The fertile and inhabitable areas of the planet are now shrinking at an alarming rate - there are three main causes for this -
1) Desertification
2) The rise in sea level produced by global warming, and not least:
3) The large areas being concreted over as towns and cities get ever bigger
As a result, because of all these factors, we need to treasure any remaining fertile areas even more than we do now. It takes 100 years to form three millimetres of soil. The average age of the soil in the UK, formed after the last Ice Age, is 15,000 years. Soil contains three times the amount of carbon that there is in all the trees and plants of every description, in all the world. It is reckoned in the UK 10% of the soil carbon has already been lost.
An important way to mitigate this problem is to make buildings support vegetation, i.e. use Earth Sheltering. However, given the modern pressures on buildings to maximise floor space, it will generally not be viable to provide mass accommodation is Earth Sheltered single storey units in an urban context.
Hence the need to develop hedge-houses which could be constructed at various heights and support vegetation at every level.
What a difference a skin of vegetation makes!
The Situation Now (continued)
Following the recent pandemic, the cost of building has rocketed. Materials are more expensive and labour is in short supply. Since Brexit, many European works have left the UK. In 2019 there were 176,000 EU-born building workers in the country. By 2020, this figure had dropped to 127,000 - i.e. a drop of 28%.
The solution is to use prefabrication to increase construction efficiency and reduce costs.
The planet is now in trouble
The solution
All housing anywhere in the world, including the hedge house, should be built to Passive Haus standards, that is with massive insulation, PV solar panels, and for example internal temperatures conserved with heat recovery systems etc. That way accommodation can use minimal energy, especially that generated by remote or centralised power stations. Not only that, but with plentiful vegetation the prefab hedge house can mop up substantial quantities of dirt and dust with its absorbent surfaces, large amounts of rainfall can be retained on site, and released slowly to ease the risk of flooding. But above all, the vegetation will absorb CO2 and release O2. All in all, prefabricated hedge houses should produce a thoroughly benign habitat for plants and thus the planet and its inhabitants, both animal and human.