Self-build family home costs under £50,000

A Cardiff-based architect has won an ideas competition to design a generously-sized 100 sq m family house that could be structurally completed by self-builders for just £41,000.

Ed Green, an associate with Cardiff-based Pentan Partnership, used a low-cost off-the-shelf agricultural barn structure to form the basic “envelope” for the property.

The design won top prize in a competition supported by TV show Grand Designs, with the winning scheme unveiled at the Grand Designs Live exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday 5 October. 

The competition was organised by the National Self Build Association (NaSBA) and the judges included TV presenters Charlie Luxton and Kevin McCloud, mayor of Bristol and former RIBA president George Ferguson, and the chair of NaSBA, Ted Stevens.

The competition brief was for entrants to come up with innovative and sustainable ways of self building a home for a family of four. Entrants had to provide a detailed cost report that demonstrated that the house could be constructed for less than £50,000, with minimal bought-in labour.

Ed Green’s design is based on a low-cost barn structure

The designs also had to be flexible enough to respond to different site contexts, able to take on a variety of external finishes to respond to the local vernacular, and be close to Passivhaus standards on energy efficiency.

Green’s winning design, called Barnhaus, utilised a standard modern steel barn frame to form the basic covering for the home, as it only cost about £2,500. He then lined it with straw bale insulation, and added doors and windows.

The competition organisers are now exploring whether it is possible to build a full mock-up of the winning entry at the next Grand Designs Live exhibition in London next year.

NaSBA’s Stevens said: “We have been overwhelmed by the calibre of ideas and innovations suggested by entrants. All of the submissions were accompanied by a detailed cost report, so it proves that it really is possible to get a great looking family house built for under £50,000 – if you are prepared to be innovative and do some of the construction work yourself.”